Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
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Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
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Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#2Since we can just make fuzzy predictions and not face any consequence, let's go !
1. The Russian military (aided if needed by mercenaries) is bringing entire cities to the ground in the south of Ukraine, and just buying times before leveling substantial parts of Kyiv. Source : the news. Painting that as a "military defeat in the making for Russia" is just insane propaganda.
2. There is a perfectly "acceptable" diplomatic compromise, where Ukraine is split into roughly east/west of the river, buffer puppet states protect Russian border, and Ukraine is free to join EU - except Ukraine does not have all the eastern mines anymore, and is basically another poor country that northern Europe is going to refuse people from. The compromise is "acceptable" by everyone except Ukrainian gouvernement, of course - but it's astonishing what having the rest of the world urge you to bail (before the winter gets cold) can do.
3. Putin will stay in power as long as his health and / or close guard of oligarchs permits. As long as gas and oil remains sold to EU, he only has to fear about the former - which we know nothing about, and I'm tired of hearing people speculate about.
4. Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen dropped a couple points in the poll - thankfully for them, the elections are in an eternity of four weeks, so this will not prevent one of them to be on the 2nd round. None of them is planning on winning anyway (baring a last minute scandal for the president), financially getting their 15% each will ensure the success of their campaigns - so business is going fairly according to plan.
5. I think I vaguely remember this author of the post saying things about the end of history after the wall fell - so as assume we could both be wrong in the end, right ?
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#3> The Biden administration’s decisions not to declare a no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones; they've kept their heads during a very emotional time.
Thankful for this, cooler heads prevailed. Despite relentless pressure coming from the news media and twitter demanding that we escalate.
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#4Since we can just make fuzzy predictions and not face any consequence, let's go ! 1. The Russian military (aided if needed by mercenaries) is bringing entire cities to the ground in the south of Ukraine, and just buying times before leveling substantial parts of Kyiv. Source : the news. Painting that as a "military defeat in the making for Russia" is just insane propaganda. 2. There is a perfectly "acceptable" diplom…
Leveling cities into rubble does not necessarily help the attacker, see Stalingrad. It hurts civilians of course, but not necessarily military defense. The thing is that modern urban warfare is so favorable to defense that the attacker has little other choice - it's rolling the dice and nothing more.
West Ukraine is not even all that poor, they have a legacy of good institutions as part of the European West and their human capital has a lot of potential. Like many middle-income countries (including Russia itself) they're hobbled by bad policy, but joining the EU would encourage them to fix this.
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#5Since we can just make fuzzy predictions and not face any consequence, let's go ! 1. The Russian military (aided if needed by mercenaries) is bringing entire cities to the ground in the south of Ukraine, and just buying times before leveling substantial parts of Kyiv. Source : the news. Painting that as a "military defeat in the making for Russia" is just insane propaganda. 2. There is a perfectly "acceptable" diplom…
To point 1, the rubbling of cities will make for much more dangerous block to block urban combat. Experts seem to think you need good supply lines and a 6 to 1 numerical advantage to win in urban guerrilla combat as the attacker. The 2nd Chechen war was ~15 years ago, the Russians have no real experience doing this. That’s why they’re recruiting Syrians. The Ukrainian defenders were trained by NATO based on urban combat doctrine developed in Fallujah and Syria. The Ukrainians could feasibly bleed the Russians until they’re out of combat ready units.
Ultimately it’s going to be a slow rolling atrocity, and there’s no way to know what next week will look like.
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#6Another counterview has emerged from Meduza, the press group which was 'blocked' in Russia as part of their silencing drive.
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/03/12/has-russia-s-invasio...
Apparently, according to Meduza we are only seeing the bright side of things - the news we want to hear. The battlefront has several other shock surprises if you look at the Ukrainian losses. It seems bleeding heavily on both sides unfortunately.
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#7Since we can just make fuzzy predictions and not face any consequence, let's go ! 1. The Russian military (aided if needed by mercenaries) is bringing entire cities to the ground in the south of Ukraine, and just buying times before leveling substantial parts of Kyiv. Source : the news. Painting that as a "military defeat in the making for Russia" is just insane propaganda. 2. There is a perfectly "acceptable" diplom…
#5
Fukuyama is almost certainly wrong or at best he is too early with his prediction
"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Fukuyama#The_End_of_Hi...
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#8lol fukuyama
I don't begrudge someone for being wrong; anyone doing anything worthwhile is going to be wrong and make errors sometimes. But I get the impression that this guy just wants to act like his garbage "end of history" thing never happened.
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#9Another counterview has emerged from Meduza, the press group which was 'blocked' in Russia as part of their silencing drive. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/03/12/has-russia-s-invasio... Apparently, according to Meduza we are only seeing the bright side of things - the news we want to hear. The battlefront has several other shock surprises if you look at the Ukrainian losses. It seems bleeding heavily on both sides…
No post body was provided.
Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat
#10For a while I was pushing the no-fly zone as well, until I read this article. I'm surprised Russia would be heading for an outright defeat, and if true they've marshaled the bulk of Russian forces in this conflict, I have to wonder what the rest of the defense position looks like for Russia?
For example, if China were to, say, start rolling across Siberia, besides moving the mother of all bowel movements, there's absolutely no way in my mind Russia could stop a complete Chinese defeat.
In fact, if China did invade Russia, they could do so to "stop a raving mad man" and I dare say be cheered on by many in the west. China could...almost redeem a piece of itself. That would start a nuclear war, however, because Putin would simply press the button..but it's fodder for thought how China could play a role.