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Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

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Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#111

Post by ailef »

ogogmad wrote: post #97
pphysch wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afghanistan was about Soviet/American imperial conquest & controlling Asia. Chechnya was about suppressing separatism / national security. Ukraine is also about national security, but a rung up from Chechnya because Moscow is concerned about a hostile military empire putting hypersonics there. Cuban Missile Crisis but even more extreme (imagine if Cuban extremists were shelling and killing Cuban Americans in Florida…

1. Why is Russia afraid of a defensive alliance with no compulsion to join (unlike the hilariously named Warsaw Pact)? The most enthusiastic members of the alliance are the closest to them... I wonder why... 2. NATO doesn't have hypersonic missiles. Russia has hypersonic missiles. 3. Why does Russia get to bolster their security by ravaging their democratic neighbours? Seems like zero-sum type behaviour. Maybe Russia…

To define NATO as a defensive alliance you need to stretch the definition of the word defensive so much that probably Putin invasion of Ukraine could be considered defensive as well.

> 2. NATO doesn't have hypersonic missiles. Russia has hypersonic missiles.

I don't know much about this one but wouldn't any NATO member having hypersonic missiles mean that NATO has them?

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#112

Post by pphysch »

mopsi wrote: post #105
pphysch wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. 14,000 Ukrainians have been killed by Ukrainians since 2014 in the Donbass region. Heavy weaponry involved. If that is not a civil war, what is it?

> If that is not a civil war, what is it? Russian invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Ironically, since most people living there are Russians, it's Russians killing Russians in Ukraine in the name of Putin's delusions.

So the current war started in 2014, not 2022?

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#113

Post by nsriv »

frozencell wrote: post #23
ch4s3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even supporting the Ukrainian side, it’s clear that they’re taking heavy losses and doubly so on the civilian side. What I think people are correctly surprised by is how well the Ukrainians are utilizing NATO training an arms, and how badly the Russians are performing.

We don’t have a cryptographic proof on each statistics both sides news give us.

I know this is going to be a violation of the rules, but this is truly one of the most divorced-from-reality, stunningly dumb things I've ever read.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#114

Post by it_does_follow »

c-smile wrote: post #14

The Great Delusion (2020) by prof. John Mearsheimer: https://youtu.be/nZVIaXFN2lU That if someone really wants to understand where we are with all those Libya, Syria, Iraq, ... Ukraine. And how and when this one really started: https://youtu.be/ppD_bhWODDc As of Francis Fukuyama predictions... I am Ukrainian by myself. With family spread over West Ukraine and Russia East. Note: Russia is the second country after Ukra…

> That if someone really wants to understand where we are with all those Libya, Syria, Iraq, ... Ukraine.

I appreciate Mearsheimer's perspective, but for a self professed "realist", I find it strange that he talks a lot about "ideology" and very little about "oil".

At the end of the day all of those conflicts are conflicts over the control of fossil fuels. I have a hard time taking any analysis seriously that doesn't focus on this primary issue.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#115

Post by mopsi »

pphysch wrote: post #112
mopsi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that is not a civil war, what is it? Russian invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Ironically, since most people living there are Russians, it's Russians killing Russians in Ukraine in the name of Putin's delusions.

So the current war started in 2014, not 2022?

Careful now, you might not get paid if you use the w-word.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#116

Post by prepend »

pavlov wrote: post #86
frozencell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t have a cryptographic proof on each statistics both sides news give us.

How would that even work? Do you expect dying soldiers to bravely sign "I am dead" blockchain transactions with their private keys?

Sadly, there’s no money in speculating on proof of life, real-time blockchains.

I remember in the 90s when we were thinking about notification schemes to prove we were still alive and would post daily keepalive posts to show we were still alive. That wasn’t much fun so we didn’t keep doing it for long.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#118

Post by klelatti »

forinti wrote: post #101
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.

I can't imagine that Russia has planned to take over such a large country. It only makes sense if they only planned to bomb Ukraine into handing over Donetsk, Lukhansk, recognising the loss of Crimea, and agreeing not to join NATO. From this perspective, it's hard for Russia to loose. A destroyed Ukraine won't fight for their lost territories and won't be accepted into the EU or NATO.

Don’t believe that for a moment. Crimea and parts of Donetsk etc already under their control and a limited incursion could have gained more territory at low risk.

Instead Russia faces huge economic penalties and stronger Ukraine-EU links are much more likely even if full membership doesn’t happen.

Re: Francis Fukuyama: Preparing for Defeat

#119

Post by mopsi »

pphysch wrote: post #110
ogogmad wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you read the man's mind? Because the rest of us are struggling to, and are preparing for the worst.

No, I just hear to what Moscow has been saying for the last 15yrs and relate it to facts on the ground. No need for armchair psychology.

Why 15 years? You don't need to go futher back than to mid-February and see what they said about the invasion of Ukraine. Or even better, just a few days ago Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov said that there's no war in Ukraine. Trustworthy chap, no doubt.
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