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Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

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Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#61

Post by klelatti »

srvmshr wrote: post #37
klelatti wrote: post #22

The question I don’t have an answer for here is how does Russia control Ukraine if they do win militarily? It seems incredibly unlikely that they have enough troops and doesn’t seem remotely sustainable.

They can't. An unbiasedly simple answer. Strategically this war is a lost cause for Russia, even if they win militarily in the short term. Capture is one thing. Holding on is another. According to latest estimates, RU has already invested the lion share of its military assets (not army men) in the Ukraine invasion. And they're doing badly. There will be attrition & guerrila warfare if boots stay on Ukrainian soil. Th…

Indeed and this all seems to support the hypothesis that Putin expected a quick capitulation and to install a compliant regime.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#63

Post by zozbot234 »

jonahbenton wrote: post #53
pphysch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissing Mearsheimer as a "right wing thinker" that is "blinded by ideology". Oh the irony. Mearsheimer may be blinded by silly IR theories, but he is a realist (i.e. not ideologue) through and through.

Sorry, have to disagree. His repeated "Putin is a brilliant strategist" is right out of right wing orthodoxy. Putin is a nascissist and a ruthless bully. His will to power is generally worshipped on the right, and mistaken for strategic brilliance, but it is not. For instance the endemic corruption in the regime is virtually absent from Mearsheimer analyses, but is critically important from a realist assessment. Puti…

"Realist" IR theory in general misses the importance of self-sustaining structures, systems and institutions. The peaceful international order itself is a cooperatively self-sustaining institution, and this handily explains why a huge amount of countries which benefit from a workable international order are reacting so quickly to Russia's actions.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#65

Post by popularonion »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #10

For 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 abs…

China would do far more damage to Russia just by putting on trade sanctions, rather than marching around Russian Far East territories where literally nobody lives.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#66

Post by CryptoPunk »

jonahbenton wrote: post #53
pphysch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissing Mearsheimer as a "right wing thinker" that is "blinded by ideology". Oh the irony. Mearsheimer may be blinded by silly IR theories, but he is a realist (i.e. not ideologue) through and through.

Sorry, have to disagree. His repeated "Putin is a brilliant strategist" is right out of right wing orthodoxy. Putin is a nascissist and a ruthless bully. His will to power is generally worshipped on the right, and mistaken for strategic brilliance, but it is not. For instance the endemic corruption in the regime is virtually absent from Mearsheimer analyses, but is critically important from a realist assessment. Puti…

Generalizing one of the most esteemed IR scholars of the last century as a "right wing thinker", on the basis that one of his assessments is, allegedly, one held by many on the right, is an incredibly lazy over-simplification to pigeon-hole a situation into the "enlightened leftists vs dumb immoral right-wingers" paradigm that left-wing ideologues frequently promulgate.

One can very reasonably critique Mearsheimer's analyses, but not on the basis of such a simplistic "left vs right" model of the world.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#67

Post by yodon »

FiberBundle wrote: post #54
purple_ferret wrote: post #24

People love to lampoon Fukuyama, but he merely put into words and placed on a pedestal an entire mindset (which continues to persist) that has proven to be highly flawed. I am grateful he exists as at least a small focal point people can bring up. Even now the world just continues with this hazy 'everything's gonna be better eventually' talk that is well loved and perpetuated even in the face of an opposing reality.

Have you actually read "The end of History"?

>Have you actually read "The end of History"?

The Hacker News guidelines page[0] is a pretty incredible document. One of the smallest but most central insights in it is "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. 'Did you even read the article? It mentions that' can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Unlike most sites, HN is very intentional about optimizing everything in the site for quality of discussion, not for outrage and conflict and dismissal. Everything about how the Karma system works here and the way audiences react to posts differently here than on Reddit ties back to that goal (HN isn't interested in page views or ad revenues, it wants to be interesting to smart people so they stick around and participate).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#68

Post by MrRiddle »

klelatti wrote: post #22

The question I don’t have an answer for here is how does Russia control Ukraine if they do win militarily? It seems incredibly unlikely that they have enough troops and doesn’t seem remotely sustainable.

Actually it’s fairly easy, they can conduct Balkanization[0]

They will find appropriate politicians or in some cases warlords for each region, in most cases they will fight among each other to gain power.

This is not WW2 where you need a soldier to stand around every other corner, we’re much more sophisticated now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#69

Post by ogogmad »

pphysch wrote: post #28

I read the title and assumed Fukuyama would be humbly accepting the "defeat" of his "end of history" vision for a unipolar world... > 1. Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine. LOL

How do we know that this is not another Afghanistan/Chechen-1 for Russia? They lost both of those, and I don't think those got off to the same troubled start (for Russia) as this one did.

Think flight from the country, brain drain, economic meltdown, loss of 3 generals in one fortnight, Ukraine being flooded with weapons, equipment loss, major logistical failures, the loss of the information war...

An outright defeat is now a possibility.

> unipolar world

What does that mean in the context of Fukuyama's thesis?

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#70

Post by yardie »

Surprisingly, I had managed to avoid any sort of layoff, firing for most of my career except that whole dotbomb era.

Then COVID came and I had my first RIF, ever. I was told weeks in advance so I could prepare my documentation and handoff. Even though I really liked that job promotions were limited and I was getting restless.

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