It appears that it's extremely likely that there will be war in Eastern Europe for the first time since 1944. While there is obviously no "legal" grounds for Russia's decision, it appears that the Russian leadership has decided that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. It seems clear that Moscow has decided that to use the mere threat of force to win political gain will not achieve their political aims.
How - or if - the rest of Europe, and the world, responds will have a great deal to do with the way this plays out
Consider this an open thread to discuss.
Update 2/21: Fred Kaplan has some ideas about why the attack didn't happen Sunday.
Interesting political note; in case you're wondering why the response from the U.S. Right seems so peculiar, consider that while Putin polls at about 75% negative amongst self-identified Republicans, Biden polls at minus-90%.
Hmmm.
Update 2/21pm: Max Seddon (Financial Times Moscow bureau chief) live-tweeting Putin's speech:
Not promising. Worth a scan of the whole thing; sounds like Putin is taking his "I alone can fix Russia by making it the old USSR again!" for a long walk.
Update 2/21 p.m.: I'm reading that Russian maneuver forces are moving into the two eastern oblasts, and particularly towards the city of Donetsk. This is consistent with Putin's speech identifying the eastern regions as part of Russia. Presumably these will complete the takeover of the entire Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts from the Ukraine government.
The real crux of the biscuit will be if the forces along the southern border of Belarus strike towards Kyiv. The distance between the border and the Ukraine capital is relatively short, and the lure for Putin and the Russian Army leadership of a "decapitation strike" must be very strong...
Update 2/24: It now appears that Putin's goal is full-on subjugation of Ukraine.
I'm not sure if this will involve prolonged
Russian occupation; if Putin doesn't, I'll bet his military chiefs
remember both the Chechen and Afghan nightmares as well as the post-WW2
Ukrainian resistance. But the actual conquest is pretty much guaranteed;
the relative strengths of the two militaries all but ensures that T-90s
will be parked in the Maidan fairly soon.
My guess is that after a brief occupation and ratissage
of Ukrainian nationalists the Russians will leave behind a Quisling
government including a mini-KGB/FSB and antipartisan militia to hunt the
resistance. I could see this working at least well-enough to get by in the eastern regions.
How well this will work in Ruthenia is anyone's guess. But "not so well" would be mine.
Now...my further, and more worried, question is whether the success of this move will embolden Putin to go after his other lust-objects, the pieces of the former USSR.
The Baltics? Georgia? One of the lessons of the fascist 1930s is that once a fascist dictator is on a roll he's often unwilling or unable to stop himself.
For a long time I thought that Putin was too canny to go full-on Hitler.
Now? I'm not convinced he has.
But I'm not so sure he hasn't, either.
And...it's worth noting that if there are any "good options" here I don't see them.
Sanctions on Russia? Ask the Cuban government how well that works. Military action? Against a nuclear power run by what increasingly appears to be an aggressive dictator who DGAF?
The brutal reality that young Mr. Putin is reminding us is that in international relations the strong CAN do what they please and the weak WILL suffer what they must.
I don't have to like that and neither do you.
But that changes this atrocity not a whit.
Update 2/25: Juan Cole observes
that Dick n' Dubya's Excellent Iraqi Adventure "enabled" the Russian
invasion of Ukraine. Over here our reliable commentor Sven makes
pretty much the same point.
I have a fair amount of respect for Cole's opinions on the Middle East, and Sven's opinions overall, but I think they overstate the case.
Reassembling the old Soviet Union has been an obsession of Putin's for as long as I've known about Putin. I can't believe that some sort of move to re-absorb Ukraine wasn't on his bucket list for a loooong time; the recent Ukrainian move to try and become more closely integrated with its western neighbors rather than Russia probably moved it up the list as well as making armed force more plausible.
(and, while we're on the subject, who the hell would WANT to be a "Russian" given the current conditions in Russia? Life as an American wage-slave sucks pretty big ass. Throw in open kleptocracy for the discreet American version along with shittier living conditions? Ugh. Our return-to-the-Gilded-Age economy may make life pretty grinding for the 99%, but I can't see voluntarily wanting to swap that for life in the post-Soviet Russia. There's frying pans and there's fires.)
Anyway, I agree with Cole that American foreign policy makes it harder for the U.S. to oppose other's military fucktardry. I agree with Sven that the U.S. and the West has done badly, both in general and in Eastern Europe.
But I disagree that Putin needed any help to decide to kill Ukrainians, or that anyone else deserves to go directly to Hell for that decision.
The U.S. was wrong in Iraq, just as it's been wrong all over the world in places like Nicaragua and Vietnam. Iraq is and was a war crime, making aggressive war, the crime for which the victorious Allies hung Nazi leaders. Dick and Dubya should be in jail, not enjoying a comfy elder statesmen's retirement.
But that simply makes Putin just as guilty.
They all should be sharing a cell in SuperMax, and We the People of the United States should be ashamed for letting them do otherwise.
To
those Russians who are trying to stop Putin...I have no words, and
doubt I have that kind of bravery. I wish I thought you could succeed. I
hate what I know will happen to you
And I'm just sorry, sorry for this sorry world that has so much wrong in it.
Update 2/26: The fighting continues in Ukraine, with the Russian forces doing surprisingly poorly (relative to the preponderance of weight-of-metal on the Russian side...). I still doubt the outcome is in play - poor or not, quantity has a quality all it's own (just hard on the people in the "quantity"...).
My opinion remains unchanged. As much as the U.S. has been a bad actor globally that doesn't excuse this. In the last words of the guys on Snake Island, "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."
Krugman has a column that makes a good point, though; for all that fingers are pointing at Putin and Russia right now, there's a mote/beam problem related to our own plutocratic/kleptocratic economies and the malefactors of great wealth therein that emphasizes the degree to which We the People have casually let the very sort of corruption endemic in Putin's Russia become less blatant but almost as endemic all over the West.
That makes even economic war problematic.
"There are two uncomfortable facts here. First, a number of influential people, both in business and in politics, are deeply financially enmeshed with Russian kleptocrats. This is especially true in Britain. Second, it will be hard to go after laundered Russian money without making life harder for all money launderers, wherever they come from — and while Russian plutocrats may be the world champions in that sport, they’re hardly unique: Ultrawealthy people all over the world have money hidden in offshore accounts.
What this means is that taking effective action against Putin’s greatest vulnerability will require facing up to and overcoming the West’s own corruption.
Can the democratic world rise to this challenge? We’ll find out over the next few months."
Remember the "Panama Papers"? The revelation of the vast coterie of Western vulture capitalists that were thieving and cheating right alongside the cartoon Latin caudillos, African "strongmen", and Russian oligarchs? Remember how many of them we prosecuted, convicted, mulcted of their stolen lucre, and sent to the Crossbar Hotel?
Yeah, me neither.
I'm not saying "Oh, we're just as bad as Russia, so we can't point fingers." Sure we can - we just need to be willing to point fingers at our own when they go wrong. We haven't done that. The fact that people like Dubya and Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney and a gajillion Wall Street thieves and, yes, Trump are still walking around free is living testimony to the degree we've failed.
Putin is still a sonofabitch.
We really need to use this occasion of naked kleptocratic criminality, though, to think hard about how much rope we want to give our own oligarchs.
Hi Chief,
ReplyDeleteI hope life is good for you and yours.
I am of the mind that Putin will not attack unless he's got guarantee's it will be a roll over, and a parade.
His proxies of Pro-Russian Ukrainian are less than stellar irregulars, so...I'm thinking if NATO and US are running real time intel to Ukrainians, it's going to be a bad day for Putin to push into Ukraine.
Putin is a cautious man, not much of a gambler, kind of heavy-handed stupid, but cautious when it comes to failure. He relies on image, but getting ground down in a mud slinging fight in Ukraine, who for the record is not Chechnya...yeah, he's going to want guarantees of win.
But if Putin does get froggy..I hope we don't get sucked into it because that could be a sink-hole of epic proportions.
sheerahkhan
I don't see any scenario where the US gets militarily involved short of a massively insane Russian thrust that flows over the western border of Ukraine. It's not in anyone's interest - I'd argue not even in Russia's - for Putin to try and actually overrun western Ukraine - the old Ruthenia, and if Russian main force units head for Kyiv I don't see any way the US doesn't slam Russia with economic and cyber warfare.
DeleteI thought initially that this would be nothing more than military posturing from the Russians, but it's looking more like Putin has an actual military objective. Not sure what it is...but it looks like he wants something that's he's gonna need the heavy armor for.
I think it's a massive error on Putin's part. But that doesn't mean he won't give it a shot.
I would liken the Ukraine to a craps table, and Putin as the walk-up gambler who was suppose to go buy milk with the two bucks in his pocket...
Deletehe may double it if he's lucky, or he may lose it all.
sheerahkahn
I can't find it now, but ran across something today that reported the latest meeting of Putin's "council" and the vibe was totally Stalin; Putin forcing his guys to demonstrate fealty to him and his position on Ukraine. The general officer who wrote the screed telling Putin that a military invasion was a bonehead move has been forced to publicly recant.
DeleteIf this is a dice roll - and war, as Bismarck is reported to have said, is always a roll of the iron dice - Pootie seems to think he's loaded the dice.
Again, I think it depends on how the rest of the world reacts. IF Russia immediately gets slammed hard with every economic weapon available? The lights going out will be in Moscow and Dnepropetrovsk. But that's a pretty big reach...
It's the same playbook from Georgia. Even the decree is the same:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/Aly_shkrum/status/1495881315178225664
Putin has played this very well. Form a “defense” agreement with two “separatist” republics, move the military into those republics for “peacekeeping” while the bulk of Russian combat power remains on Ukraine’s border as a gun-to-the-head should Ukraine try anything.
I hope there is military coordination with the US. We are flying near constantly over Ukrainian airspace, mainly ISR flights monitoring the border.
One incident and things could go downhill fast.
Yeah, the problem with these games of politco-military chicken is when both sides are convinced the other will swerve and neither does; shooting can happen whether one or both sides want it to, or not.
DeleteI think that how well Putin plays this depends on what he actually wants. I really don't think he wants a couple of shitty little oblasts. He's got crap-tons of those if he wants to play Tsar.
I think he wants a Ukraine back in Russian orbit, a solidly pro-Russian government in Kyiv at worst, an actual Ukraine SSR again at best. And I'm not sure he's going about that all that well. So far he's managed to get almost all of Ruthenia willing to fight his troopers (and it's worth noting that the western Ukraine did damn well fighting on against the Soviets after WW2...) to the death and beyond. And he's managed to even get the Germans to be willing to stand up to him which, given their dependence on Russian methane is pretty stunning.
So...IF all he wants is a couple of bits of the eastern edge? He can get that.
If he's got a more maximal objective? I dunno. I think that WILL be a roll of the iron dice. We'll see if he can avoid crapping out...
I see no win here for Putin if Ukraine and the West call bullshit.
DeletePutin doesn't have the economy for a protracted war, and Ukraine can put the hurt down if they decide this is unacceptable...which they're going to have to do...else Putin will take this as a sign that all he has to do is stir the pot with "pro-russian indigenous people" and move in.
Ukraine needs to curb stomp this, or it's going to be more of the same in six years.
sheerahkahn
I think you're right Chief, especially in light of the full-scale invasion. And I don't think any of it is surprising. It's been clear, to me at least, for quite a while that Russia would be willing to risk war to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO or being aligned with NATO.
DeleteThis is an unjust and illegal war, full stop. But the US should at least be cognizant of cause-and-effect when it comes to foreign policy. The assumption that Russia would continue to do nothing in response to NATO expansion was incredibly dumb, as should now be obvious. Our strategic ignorance and half-assed measures helped precipitate this war and that is not a mistake we can repeat with Taiwan.
This highlights all the problems that many have identified with NATO's purpose, NATO expansion, and the policy of letting basically anyone in, even countries that contribute nothing to the alliance while being enduring strategic liabilities. That would certainly be true for Ukraine and we should not allow Ukraine into the alliance should Russian lose this war for that reason.
And three decades later NATO still seems to be entirely dependent on the US. Personally I am tired of Europe free-riding on American defense spending.
I don't believe Putin's claptrap about NATO for a moment, Andy. I agree that he's worried about the West interfering in his cunning plan to Make Russia Great Again, but that's not because NATO expanded. It's because NATO expanded into places where he wanted to make the resident slaves to Russian rule again, like Latvia. The "tell" was his initial demands to roll NATO back to 1997, because it removes Clause 5 as a potential trigger for forcing the Western Great Powers' hand when he invades the Baltics.
DeleteIn fact, this whole fucking mess reinforces the point of NATO altogether; it actually does "keep the Russians out and the US in" (the Germans down, not so much...). I'm fine with European free-riding (up to a point) if it means not having the Poles and Hungarians answer to the KGB/FSB/SVR. I'd like the Europeans to be more serious about standing up to Russia themselves (assuming that Russia is going to continue to be like this...) but the reality is that if there's going to be three large powers - the US, PRC, and Russia - the Europeans are going to have to depend on one of them simply due to the size and economic power differential, and I'd just as soon it be us.
The real problem, tho, is the still unanswered-question that IF Putin decides to go after other pieces of the former Soviet empire, will ANY of the Western states - not just the US but the European nuclear powers France and Britain - be willing to roll the nuclear dice that a Putin, defeated on the borders of Estonia, doesn't say fuck it and let the nukes fly?
Russia has been fighting wars to secure its southern flank for 300 years. There is nothing surprising about Russia - not just Putin - opposing Ukraine joining a hostile military alliance (as was done in the Caucuses). And yeah, Putin and Russia are bitter and angry about NATO expansion, and about 30 years of NATO and the US unfailingly shitting on Russian strategic interests. What's shocking is that people in the west are surprised this is the case. You can't expect to dump on a nuclear-armed country forever and not receive pushback. All things that those of us who've been skeptical of NATO expansion have been pointing out for years.
DeleteNow, I don't have a problem with the US pressing our advantage, particularly against Putin's Russia, but we ought to be a lot smarter about cause-and-effect. Dangling NATO membership for Ukraine was never going to end well, or at least was going to be very costly, which is what we are seeing now. This current war was entirely predictable, not because of psychology particular to Putin, but because Russia had made this red line so crystal clear and because of Russia's long-standing history and culture.
Don't believe me? Game this out as an example of my argument: Let's say the US publicly dangles the potential of diplomatic recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation and also floats the idea of a formal military alliance. What do you think China would do? My view is that China would quickly attack Taiwan to prevent that from happening.
Finally, I'm surprised you're fine with some free-riding considering how critical you've historically been about US "empire." In that vein, NATO today, as compared to the Cold War, is more a system of American protectorates than a real military alliance. Add to that the fact that we seek to add countries that would contribute nothing to the alliance while remaining enduring strategic liabilities. What is that if not empire? Ironic that I've come around to your position on American hegemony.
the world has changed, Andy.
DeleteI think the nations of the world are still trying to figure out this new world...so many things have changed from the old world.
NATO is antiquated, it's more of an economic bloc, now with the second, follow-on feature being a military alliance, and I think that is what made Putin shit himself.
Ukraine is an up and coming economic powerhouse, and was the center of economy for the old USSR. I totally get why Putin was trying to conquer the Ukraine.
It is a blatant habeus grabbus for it's economic and mineral wealth.
The problem is...Putin has shit for a military.
Don't get me wrong, nice toys, pretty planes, beautiful tanks, cute little artillery pieces, etc, etc, etc.
but like Pre-WWII Italy's Navy, if you don't have competent people to operate them...yeah
so, here we are, America, in the 21st century, wrestling with our own past, and still trying to figure how come we're a pile of colossal assholes to one another...I don't know if we will ever figure that out...I really don't.
But this...thing over in Ukraine...too many people in the US under-estimated the Ukrainian military, and over-estimated Putin's capabilties. I don't know why, they should have known better, but I suspect they got caught up in the numbers game, and not the quality of the personnel to run them.
If I allow myself to think about this...and give it some thought: the world is a different place than what we once knew. Us cold-war warriors of a bygone era are watching things unravel, and all we can thinks is chaos, mayhem, and commies...everywhere, commies, as far as the eyes can see, commies!
the United States, and maybe Europe...I don't know enough about Europe's cohesion other than the Germans are floating the Euro...at least the last time I looked, and that was a while ago are confronted by the limitations of our own greed, and the potential to move beyond our wallets is...its there, we can feel it, but we're not sure if we're willing to give up the one damn thing that gives us meaning in our lives...our money and what it can buy us.
I understand China, their goals are simple...they want to take back control of the Pacific trade, and their first victory was handed to them by Donald Trump and the GOP when he abandoned TPP...I still don't get that, but...done is done. But China is going to be confronted with the same dilemma of their wallet as we're facing. Taiwan will become less, and less important to them as they become increasingly aware of how small the world has become.
Putin on the other hand is doomed, as is his Oligarchs...there is no growth, there is no future, they are living in the here and now, and with them will be buried their wallets and their greed.
But the problem for us is we have a problem with our wallets...far too many Americans are so underwater financially, they don't care what happens, as long as they are not the only ones drowning in financial despair
and
the rich think they're above it all...
We have a shit-storm of climate reset coming that just...boggles the mind, and only a few in the US even give it a passing thought.
it's a different world we find ourselves in...and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets a little better.
maybe
just maybe
we as a species can stop shitting on one another so we can work together, meet the challenges of this up-coming future that will probably overturn everything we thought we knew, and come out the other side with more comity than hostility.
personally, I don't know if us humans as species are capable of that.
sheerahkahn
Here's George Kennan in writing 1997 (Yes, the Kennan that is credited with the "containment" strategy), right as Putin was moving from being a local politician in St. Petersburg to Moscow:
Delete"But something of the highest importance is at stake here. And perhaps it is not too late to advance a view that, I believe, is not only mine alone but shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters. The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire pos-cold-war era.
Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militarist tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.
It is, of course, unfortunate that Russia should be confronted with such a challenge at a time when its executive power is in a state of high uncertainty and near-paralysis. And it is doubly unfortunate considering the total lack of any necessity for this move. Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the cold war, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict?
I am aware, of course, that NATO is conducting talks with the Russian authorities in hopes of making the idea of expansion tolerable and palatable to Russia. One can, in the existing circumstances, only wish these efforts success. But anyone who gives serious attention to the Russian press cannot fail to note that neither the public nor the Government is waiting for the proposed expansion to occur before reacting to it.
Russians are little impressed with American assurances that it reflects no hostile intentions. They would see their prestige (always uppermost in the Russian mind) and their security interests adversely affected. They would, of course, have no choice but to accept expansion as a military fait accompli. But they would continue to regard it as a rebuff by the West and would likely look elsewhere for guarantees of a secure and hopeful future for themselves."
The notion that our hands are clean in this mess is sophistry. If we had more vision, we would, at a minimum, have treated Ukraine like Taiwan, and not strung them along with empty promises of NATO membership for 14 years, endlessly playing into well-know Russian fears.
That is all water under the bridge now. The best case now is that this war doesn't escalate, that Ukraine wins, and that NATO and the US reevaluate to stupid policy of endless expansion. And I hope the US maintains the grey-zone policy we have with Taiwan and doesn't dangle empty promises before them that would incentivize a Chinese invasion.
And with Ukraine, no one should start celebrating yet. It's been a bad week for Russia but people are making way too much out of this. Russia has only brought a small portion of its mass to bear and it will adjust now that it's initial operational strategy has failed. You are going to see a LOT more violence this week and we will see if Russia's mass is enough to overcome Ukraine's cohension. A lot of people - mostly Ukrainians - are going to die.
And here's an actually decent explainer of the effects and history of NATO expansion from Vox:
Deletehttps://www.vox.com/22900113/nato-ukraine-russia-crisis-clinton-expansion
"Putin doesn't have the economy for a protracted war, and Ukraine can put the hurt down if they decide this is unacceptable..."
ReplyDeleteThe issue is that in eastern parts of the Ukraine Russians are the majority of citizens, therefore, Putin has support and can rule in the long term with moderate economic input.
In the western parts the Russians are a hated minority, occupation of these parts will most likely lead to an insurgency, an economically problematic scenario for Russia.
Look at a map. The region Northwest of Kiev is the Pripjet marshes (and Chernobyl). Very easy to defend, even in face of hostile air power.
ReplyDeleteFor the grand picture, keep in mind that it's very hard to add a partially occupied country to NATO (also very hard to add to the EU, but Cyprus showed that's possible).
That would explain the paucity of reported Russian maneuver units to the northwest. It does look like the Glavkomat either sees a practical avenue of approach from the north/northeast or is using the troop units there to spread the Ukrainian defense out to the east.
DeleteThis morning I'm reading what sounds like a general invasion; Russian units driving south from Belarus, amphibious landings along the Black Sea coast, as well as an overall air superiority attack designed to remove any sort of CAS help the defenders might raise.
There's no telling where this goes. Assuming the actual conquest succeeds - and given the relative strengths of the armed forces involved I can't see how it fails - my guess is that Putin installs a Quisling regime in Kyiv. An actual military occupation would seem like a recipe for disaster, so I'm guessing that the SVR has ginned up a cadre of Quislings to act as Gestapo and antiguerrilla partisans, as well. Not sure how well that'll work; it'll depend on the willingness of Ruthenians to die for their ex-country...
The real question in my mind is that - given how utterly nuts this is geopolitically - does this mean that Putin is willing to take a slap at the Baltics? He doesn't risk running headlong into a genuine foreign war with this little adventure. But there..?
And if it works, if I were Taiwan, I'd be very, very nervous.
https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-messed-up-international-disorder.html
DeleteI don't give a shit about Taiwan. It's on the other end of the world and we shouldn't do much trade over such distances anyway.
To me this Ukraine invasion actually reduced fears about the Baltic.
"To me this Ukraine invasion actually reduced fears about the Baltic."
Delete?????
And I'm glad YOU don't give a shit about Taiwan! That means the Taiwanese can sleep soundly knowing there's nothing to give a shit about!
Well, see the link for why this mess eases me about the Baltics.
DeleteTaiwan is officially a part of the PRC, hardly any country recognises it as independent even though it de facto is so.
The PRC was never held back from Taiwan by the concepts that protected Ukraine until 2014. Whatever it is, the Taiwanese have their own ways.
And I don't give a shit becuase getting involved in East Asian conflicts is as stupid for a European as getting involved in Central Asian conflicts if for an American. We may vote in the UNGA on issues in that region, and that should be all of it.
The urge to feel that super distant affairs are one's own affairs is the root behind stupid small wars. I remember the books and articles describing how extremely offended Germans pretended to be by the Boxer uprising 120 years ago. We modified ocean liners into troop transports and sent German infantry to fight in China. It was all bullshit.
Being relaxed is a necessity if you want to avoid needless participation in wars.
You'll note I didn't say YOU should give a shit. My point was simply that if I was Taiwanese and watched Putin get away with this - which he will - I'd be looking very suspiciously at Xi.
DeleteI know you don't a shit and the why; you've made that clear, and I'm not arguing against that. But not everything's about you. Other people who are in the dictators' sights are likely to kinda HAVE to give a shit.
And as for the link, well...no.
The reason that Putin is going to succeed in Ukraine (and will if he attacks the Baltics, surprise or not) isn't about half-assed policy but that nobody is suicidal enough to risk a shooting war with a nuclear Russia unless it's painfully obvious that Putin intends to swarm into central Europe. Treaty or no treaty, NATO or no NATO, no one's going to risk that to keep Putin out of the old USSR. That's WHY NATO kept sliding away from Ukraine; they knew how likely this was.
War in general is bullshit; you don't have to tell me. But that's cold comfort for the Ukrainians, who are going to find out what the toad beneath the harrow knows, and the other former Soviet polities. It's pretty obvious that Putin is going to try and put the band back together to the degree he can. Too bad for them, but just like you, the President of the U.S. is going to decide that Georgia or Latvia isn't worth the bones of a Minnesota grenadier.
Taiwan is of much greater strategic importance than Ukraine (at least for the US), simply given how central Taiwan is to things like chip manufacturing.
DeleteAnd I think the lesson here, which the US national security establishment still fails to realize, is that other countries have red lines that they are willing to go to war over. If the US wants to ensure the Chinese invade Taiwan, then dangling the prospect of a formal US-Taiwan military alliance would be the way to do it - which is exactly what happened with Ukraine.
The obvious consequent question from that is, then; what does the US do if the PRC decides it wants the chip manufacturing (along with every other damn piece of Taiwan)?
DeleteI mean...I don't want nuclear war with the PRC. But if the alternative is "The PRC does anything it damn well pleases with every and anyone outside the beach at Malibu"? That's pretty shitty. And it presupposes a world full of Russian and PRC clients who will be arrayed against the US. I'm not sure THAT's a good end-state, either...
Fuck the chip manufacturing. The company that builds the best and most machinery for that is Dutch.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding
If West Taiwan goes to war with Taiwan we'll build our own chip factories, with blackjack and hookers.
We would have a couple bad years economy-wise (and Christmas presents-wise), and then West Taiwan would be fucked, left behind with an economy of little more than construction and largely cut off from overseas raw materials.
They would fall back to the 70's with lots of additional concrete with quick-rusting chinesium rebar, and all their investments in Africa and South Asia would be worth nothing.
They don't attack for good reasons.
"simply given how central Taiwan is to things like chip manufacturing."
DeleteNo, Taiwan is as important for chip menufacturing as China is for manufacturing of PV modules, both have built factories with equipment delivered by European companies - the chip production is a nice example of Dutch-German cooperation - and use for the products designs that are also imported.
Yes, a lot of the equipment used in foundries comes from Europe. But the fact is that there is much more to a chip foundry than the specialized gear you're talking about. And the fact is that one can't squat and shit out a chip foundry. They take years to build. Most of them are in Taiwan.
DeleteIf you want to make that an irrelevant strategic consideration then you need to build excess capacity outside of Taiwan now.
"They don't attack for good reasons."
DeleteAh, yes, the "rational actor" theory of international relations.
Here's the problem with that; almost EVERY time a nation or group has gone to war they believe they have "good reasons". Dick and Dubya probably thought they had good reasons to invade Iraq. They were wrong, mind...but they THOUGHT they weren't.
I can't disagree more strongly; nations go to war for all kinds of stupid, misinformed, hubristic, asinine "reasons". The current Ukraine invasion has a strong "Schlieffen Plan" smell to it, IMO. Putin and his small body of advisors saw only their panic about Western encroachment and Ukrainian disaffection without thinking about anything else.
England has a treaty with Belgium? WTF? That's never going to be a problem! English propaganda makes submarine warfare risk bringing the damn Americans into the war? WTF? That's never going to be a problem!
So, I'd love it if every nation and every organization made rational decisions to make or not make war.
I'm not sure I see the evidence, though...
"I can't disagree more strongly; nations go to war for all kinds of stupid, misinformed, hubristic, asinine "reasons". The current Ukraine invasion has a strong "Schlieffen Plan" smell to it, IMO. Putin and his small body of advisors saw only their panic about Western encroachment and Ukrainian disaffection without thinking about anything else."
DeleteI agree, motivated reasoning based on subjective and parochial "moral imperatives" drive most of these conflicts. In that regard, the Russians are not unique. The problem I have is that we knew (or should have known) how they would react. Shit, it was obvious to a gomer like me who was never more than a cog in the IC and only has an undergrad degree is Russian history and language.
This situation highlights why it is all the more important to consider how opponents will interpret our moves. If you know ahead of time that Russia will probably unreasonably freakout and attack Ukraine - because all the signs have been there - then maybe one should consider other options. The fact is we didn't know it because we were inside our own motivated reasoning bubble. And if we did know it then we have moral culpability.
If we're destined to be the global hegemon, then we need to be a lot smarter about this stuff.
" But the fact is that there is much more to a chip foundry than the specialized gear you're talking about. And the fact is that one can't squat and shit out a chip foundry."
DeleteLook, there are and were chip foundries in Europe, some are actually being built, there is know-how.
But the interesting issue is, that without equipment, the chip production does not work in Taiwan, and China cannot substitute equipment.
Intel was one of the very few companies/only company(?) that had everything in-house, then there was a screw up with extreme UV which allowed AMD -production in Taiwan with European equipment- to catch up.
Note my comment to Sven above. I'm NOT saying that the US, or NATO, or the EU, or my dog, should wage war against Russia in Ukraine. There's nothing to be gained, and an immense risk to be had. Russia will do what empires have done to their neighbors (the Cheyenne dog soldiers would be nodding ruefully here...) since Sumer.
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't mean I have to like it and I don't.
Putin is threatening Finland (yeah, that worked out so well the last time for Russia), and Sweden if they join NATO...which is odd, I thought they were, already in...I need to look that up...
ReplyDeleteanyway
I'm not worried Putin is going to go lebensraum on his neighboring countries...as I said, Russia's military is pretty shitty compared to their neighbors so, he's not going to go far with his conventional military.
but his nukes
/sigh
yeah
that's where it gets iffy
Putin is a rabid little rat who only cares about himself...and cornered rats like him are the worst.
I don't know how this is going to be resolved...I just hope he and his reign implodes quietly in a traditional Russian trial of scripted determinations, solemn soliloquy, and a final moment in a dirty shower at the bottom of a Russian jail; and not in a, "I hate you all, and I'll take you all with me!" moment of fiery contempt.
sheerahkahn
@FDChief, regarding your addition from 25th:
ReplyDeleteI didn't explicitly write that Dubya et al enabled Putin's aggression. I wrote
"Putin would have had much more to fear if he ruled Russia in a world that had become accustomed to international law being followed by great powers for three decades. Now instead, he can rest assured that Western hypocrisy has dulled the blade of international law and his aggression will be tolerated by most of the world just as were Western aggressions."
The Western great power gaming means that Russia won't be as much an outcast as if there had been no aggressions by the West in 1999 and 2003. To some extent, recognising Kosovo as independent is also an excuse for the Russian support for separatists in Ukraine and Georgia.
Putin's aggression is being enabled by the loyalty of the Russian senior officers in the military and paramilitary/police/FSB.