While I can buy your premise, its not clear these are great examples.
FDR clearly wanted to go to war with Germany, I don't think the odds of that not happening even without the declaration of war are particularly high (even 5% seems to high).
Given the nature of fighting in the Pacific, there really weren't any resources we sent to Europe…
While I can buy your premise, its not clear these are great examples.
FDR clearly wanted to go to war with Germany, I don't think the odds of that not happening even without the declaration of war are particularly high (even 5% seems to high).
Given the nature of fighting in the Pacific, there really weren't any resources we sent to Europe that would have made the War in the Pacific go much faster.
Declaring War on Japan after just signing a defense pact with them? Very transparent and won't convince anyone.
The reason I was always given is that Germany was fighting a U-boat war in the Atlantic, that winning that U-boat war was the only reasonable way of keeping American goods from getting to Europe, and that declaring war allowed for more unrestricted U-boat warfare. In fact this early part of the war was considered a good time for the U-boats.
I don't really have a strong opinion on this (Germany is fucked either way), but your counter factual seems absurd.
The list of "impulsive behaviors" is also very subjective, to the point that they need to add "inappropriately" to descriptions, because many of these are behaviors that are sometimes appropriate.
P.S. Your foreign policy writing is very weak. Your not even anti-war like libertarians are supposed to be most of the time.
Bryan has stated that Putin is impossible to appease and needs to be confronted.
He specifically chastised Hanania when Ukraine stated over not wanting to support Ukraine.
The context is not lost. Putler wants to conquer the entire world just like Hitler, and any attempt to negotiate is Munich and Appeasement all over again. When he is done with Ukraine, Poland will be next. Bryan echoed the same alarmist rhetoric that was part of the moral panic of the time.
We now know that Ukraine and Russia were close to a peace deal, but the west scuttled it, largely due to the moral panic arguments listed above that Bryan chose to traffic in at the time as well.
Bryan's social circle had a moral panic over Russia. Bravery would have been standing up to that moral panic. Bryan wasn't brave, he bandwagoned. The result has been over a million casualties with no end in sight.
He probably thinks he's brave because he didn't bandwagon over Middle East wars. But Middle East wars were never popular *amongst his social circle*, so there really wasn't any price to pay to be a non-conformist.
He has put out several other pieces arguing that Russia is irrational and dangerous. I've never seen him try to argue to Russia POV or propose a solution it might accept. I have not seen a single comment that criticizes NATO or Ukraine.
Bryan choose to weigh in on this matter. He choose to clearly take a side. He choose to argue for war and confrontation.
If you want to argue that he's right to do those things, go ahead. I can construct a libertarian argument for war (I don't think it applies here, but such an argument exists). But let's not deny them.
In Bryan's reply to Hanania, he was talking about if appeasement could have prevented the war entirely, and concluded that it could not, mainly because Putin wouldn't even give concrete demands that could be appeased. He is completely right, the alleged "peace deal" you mentioned was a cease-fire after the war had been ongoing, not a deal to prevent the war entirely.
I looked further into your claims that there was a "peace deal" that was "scuttled by the west." The idea appears to have come from the comments of an Israeli diplomat named Naftali Bennett, who implied in one interview that a cease fire might have been possible at one point in March 2022, weeks after the war had been going on, but US and UK diplomats thought it was a bad idea that wouldn't work. Bennett later clarified these claims in another interview, saying that no cease-fire agreement had been reached or was even close, he meant that US and UK diplomats had thought it was a bad idea in the early stages of discussing options. Bennett also clarified that it was revelation of Russian war crimes that put an end to the talks, not anything the West did. It's not likely that the West would have any power to prevent a cease-fire if Ukraine and Russia wanted it. It looks like pro-Russian news services took these comments out of context and tried to spin them into some stupid nonsense about the West prolonging the war.
As to the idea that a cease fire wouldn't have worked, it's probably right. Remember that the threat of Ukraine joining the Club of Countries that Russia is Not Allowed to Invade (or NATO, as it is commonly called), was a major justification Putin has used for the war. Why would Putin be opposed to Ukraine joining the Russia Can't Invade Us Club unless he wanted to make sure invasion was an option in the future? Russia has nukes, NATO poses absolutely no offensive threat to them, the "threat" it poses is to Russian military adventurism.
No one seriously believes, as you assert, that Putin is a Hitler-level threat, but he is a threat to the peace of the local region around Russia. This isn't a "moral panic," Russia has actually invaded other areas in the local region before. One of Putin's allies in government literally said that Poland was next. It makes sense that the same social circles who opposed wars in the Middle East would support Ukrainian self-defense, because the wars in the Middle East were examples of stupid American adventurism and the war in Ukraine is stupid Russian adventurism. They aren't being conformist, they are consistently opposing stupid military adventurism, regardless of what country does it.
Bryan hasn't really criticized NATO or Ukraine, but what is there to criticize? NATO done an admirable job of staying out of the war and prevent it from escalating, while providing material aid for Ukraine to defend themselves. Ukraine has done an astoundingly job of defending themselves. There is nothing Ukraine did wrong to provoke Russia into attacking them, they were attacked because Putin is a pathetic madman with fever dreams of conquest.
Bryan has argued that Putin is irrational and dangerous, but that is not because Bryan is pro-war, it is because he is pro-facts. From a Russian POV, what would be in their people's interest is to never have started the war in the first place, and to end it, pack up, and go home once it is started. The reason that that isn't even on the table is that Putin is an irrational Russian nationalist who cares more about the glory and prestige of the Russian government and military than he does about the welfare and safety of the Russian people.
"he was talking about if appeasement could have prevented the war entirely, and concluded that it could not, mainly because Putin wouldn't even give concrete demands that could be appeased"
Putin did make concrete demands, and we denied them. We did not for instance agree to withdraw future NATO membership, to stop arming and training the Ukranians (which we were consistently doing from 2014-2022), or to abide by the Minsk treaty.
More generally, there has been no apology for our 2014 assistance in the overthrow of the Ukranian government.
---
In a surprise visit to Ukraine on 9 April, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said "Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with," and that the collective West was not willing to make a deal with Putin. Three days after Johnson left Kyiv, Putin stated publicly that talks with Ukraine "had turned into a dead end".
---
"Russia has nukes, NATO poses absolutely no offensive threat to them, the "threat" it poses is to Russian military adventurism."
We have nukes. We could use them to defend Taiwan. And yet we are build and maintain giant fleets to defend them. Why bother, we have nukes? It's a legitimate question, one I even feel some affinity towards.
But the reason people give is that using nukes is a dangerous and devastating way to plan a national defense. If you entire strategy is NUKES, you really limit your options.
What if China blockades Taiwan? Would we nuke Shanghai? What would happen if we did that? It sure would be nice if we had strategic options other than that, which is why we have a conventional force.
Similarly, let's say we get into a war with China. Russia decides to sell China energy. We bomb their energy facilities to stop this. A war starts. Man, it would sure be nice to have a strategic depth if that happens rather than having a nuke only strategy. Guess it's time to turn your own country into an irradiated wasteland to stop the invading armies.
Or let's take something more straightforward. We helped overthrow the government in Ukraine in 2014. We've made it clear we would like to overthrow the government in Moscow for a long time now, even before this war. We openly supported that drunk Yeltsin in the 1990s while we walked over every agreement we ever had with Russia. We have a pattern of supporting color revolutions and overthrowing governments around the world. What would you take away from that? What if we astroturf a revolution in Russia, then support it from our new base in Ukraine.
Can you imagine what the USA would have done it Russia sponsored a coup in Mexico and then armed them? I guarantee we would have invaded Mexico by now. Remember what we did over Cuba?
You act like this decision came out of nowhere. "Adventurism". As if there were no history at all leading up to it. As if Putin could have done all this on his own with no buy in from anyone else in Russia, rather then something that had broad support in Russia (which every single diplomat tells us is true).
"No one seriously believes, as you assert, that Putin is a Hitler-level threat"
The Biden White House literally says this.
"they were attacked because Putin is a pathetic madman with fever dreams of conquest."
You literally say this.
"NATO done an admirable job of staying out of the war and prevent it from escalating"
NATO could stay out of the war by no longer being involved in the war. No weapons. No intelligence. No funding.
"Ukraine has done an astoundingly job of defending themselves."
Ukraine has a slave army of conscripts shanghaied off the street against their will. Anyone with $5k to their name bribes their way out of the country. They can't even vote.
Slave army + western built weapons and intelligence has allowed them to rack up a million casualties across both sides with no end in sight.
Couldn't you easily tell yourself a different story? That the people of western Ukraine democratically elected their president, only to have a foreign backed color revolution violently overthrow him. The new government was a bunch of incompetent oligarchs that discriminated against Russians and used violence to keep eastern Ukraine from seceding over their coup. That Kiev now kidnaps people off the street to die in the mud trying to liberate a bunch of people that don't want to be liberated.
Libertarians are supposed to be to smart to meddle in other countries politics and take sides in civil conflicts.
"but what is there to criticize?"
NATO should have dissolved itself in 1991.
The west should not have meddled in Ukrainian politics. John McCain and Victoria Nuland should not have been in Maiden Square telling people to violently overthrow their government. The west should not have supported any of the groups that favored the coup. It should not have offered arms and training to Ukraine.
The west should have minded its own business and not been involved.
The west should immediately cut Ukraine off of support, bringing an end to the war. Without western support they will be forced to negotiate.
That's the quickest and best way to end the war.
If Bryan feels I'm wrong. If he supports American foreign policy in Ukraine, he can just say so. If not, he can say what he would have done/would do differently.
Saying that "Putin can't be appeased" implies that war was inevitable no matter what we did and that it has to be fought until total victory. It paints the other person as a wholly illogical actor immune to incentives, does he really believe this?
If he supports what has been done and wants to continue doing it, then I would say he is an interventionist that helped bring on a war through international meddling that was none of our business and now works to continue that war.
It is of course possible to have a different opinion. John Mersheimer noted that our actions in Ukraine would lead to war and it would be devastating for everyone involved. He doesn't think Putin is Hitler and wants to invade Poland next, and that he could have been appeased with simple actions that would seem perfectly logical if you reversed the roles. That's what bravery looks like. When everyone is calling you a Putler apologist, you try to talk sense into people to stop the killing.
Putin offered his opinions on various American actions in Ukraine, but didn't make a concrete threat of "obey me or I invade." On the contrary, he denied plans to invade, so much so that his own troops were unaware of any plans until they were already crossing the border.
"More generally, there has been no apology for our 2014 assistance in the overthrow of the Ukranian government."
Would you ask Stanley Kubrick to apologize for helping fake the moon landing, or for Elvis Presley to apologize for faking his death and knocking up Bigfoot? Would you ask Ted Cruz to apologize for murders he committed when he was the Zodiac Killer? America can't apologize for doing something it didn't do, just because conspiracy theorists accuse it of doing it.
The Maidan revolution was a spontaneous organization of the Ukrainian people against an evil and corrupt president who was trying to ally Ukraine with Russia against the EU, even though that was the literal opposite of what the people wanted him to do. I'm sure America offered moral support at the time, and they were glad to see Yanukovych gone, but that isn't the same as overthrowing the government. If anything America should probably apologize for not doing more to help the Ukrainian people restore their freedom.
Russia has yet to apologize for seizing Crimea in 2014 after lying and saying that the 2014 revolution was a coup. That is why America did not give in to Putin's demands to stop among and training Ukrainians, because they knew Putin wouldn't stop at Crimea, since he is crazy.
"But the reason people give is that using nukes is a dangerous and devastating way to plan a national defense."
It's a dangerous way to defend allies, but it seems reasonable to threaten to use nukes if the homeland is invaded. Russia never need fear an unprovoked invasion by NATO because of its nukes. The reason that Putin feels "threatened" by Ukraine joining the Club of Nations Russia Isn't Allowed to Invade is because he's butthurt that he can't invade the nations in that club.
"We have a pattern of supporting color revolutions and overthrowing governments around the world. What would you take away from that? What if we astroturf a revolution in Russia, then support it from our new base in Ukraine."
If that was what Putin is afraid of, then he really blew it. Because of his actions, we now have bases in Finland to support it from, and will probably have bases in Sweden soon as well. Plus, we already had Estonia, Norway, Latvia, and Lithuania bordering Russia. Would having Ukraine too really make a difference?
Besides, the CIA is grossly incompetent. Russia's intelligence service is good enough that it could easily stop such an attempt.
"Can you imagine what the USA would have done it Russia sponsored a coup in Mexico and then armed them? "
Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia were already NATO members that border Russia, and had been since 2004, and Norway's been a member since 1949. It would be pretty weird if the USA had attacked Mexico if Canada, Guatemala, Belize, and the Bahamas had already been allied with Russia for 15 years. Why pick on them in particular?
"You act like this decision came out of nowhere. "Adventurism". As if there were no history at all leading up to it. As if Putin could have done all this on his own with no buy in from anyone else in Russia, rather then something that had broad support in Russia"
It did come out of nowhere. Everyone was shocked, even Russians, when Putin ordered an invasion. Putin isolated himself for the past few years because of fear of assassination and fear of COVID, so he's been making tons of unhinged decisions with buy-in only from yes-men. The history leading up to it has mostly been the history of Ukraine trying to figure out how to defend itself from Putin, which "provokes" him by making him think he needs to invade before it gets too hard to do. Just not invading isn't an option for him, because he's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
"You literally say this."
I said Putin was a local threat who could seriously mess up Europe and parts of Asia if left unchecked. There is no danger of him conquering the entire Earth, like there was with Hitler. He isn't a Hitler-level threat, but he is a big threat.
"Ukraine has a slave army of conscripts shanghaied off the street against their will. Anyone with $5k to their name bribes their way out of the country."
You literally just described the Russian Army. The Ukrainian army is the one full of patriots literally defending their homes from invaders. The Russian army is full of burnouts and conscripts.
"That the people of western Ukraine democratically elected their president, only to have a foreign backed color revolution violently overthrow him. The new government was a bunch of incompetent oligarchs"
The people of Ukraine democratically elected their president and then threw him out in a revolution when he turned out to be a crook. It is true that the new government took a few election cycles to purge all the corruption, but they actually did really well.
One common theory as to why Putin thought attacking Ukraine was a good idea was that he surrounded himself with yes-men who didn't update him about the success of Ukraine's anti-corruption measures. He thought he was going to be fighting a corrupt government with no popular support that would roll over easily, not a government backed by its people.
"NATO should have dissolved itself in 1991."
Before 1991 NATO was the "Countries the USSR Isn't Allowed to Invade Club." After 1991 it smoothly transitioned into the "Countries that Russia Isn't Allowed to Invade Club." That's an important function, since Russia keeps getting taken over by crazy militarists. There's no reason for Russia to feel threatened by other countries joining the club, unless its leaders really want to invade them (which they do).
"The west should not have meddled in Ukrainian politics. John McCain and Victoria Nuland should not have been in Maiden Square telling people to violently overthrow their government. "
John McCain and Victor Nuland are entitled to voice whatever opinions they want about what the Ukrainian people ought to do. They have no power in Ukraine, if they tell the Ukrainians to overthrow the government, the Ukrainians can just ignore them. The only reason the Ukrainian people didn't ignore them was that they already wanted to overthrow their government, because their president was betraying them to Putin.
"Saying that "Putin can't be appeased" implies that war was inevitable no matter what we did and that it has to be fought until total victory. It paints the other person as a wholly illogical actor immune to incentives, does he really believe this?"
Crazy is a spectrum. Putin is not a wholly illogical actor who is immune to incentives, but he is an extremely illogical actor who is highly resistant to incentives. War was inevitable because the only incentives big enough to stop him from invading Ukraine were incentives so horrible that they obviously aren't worth it, like nuclear war with the USA. There was no incentive that was simultaneously big enough to stop him from invading, and small enough that it wouldn't be worse than the invasion. It might be possible to stop him short of total victory, Ukraine has definitely made progress by humiliating the Russian army in the field of battle.
"The Maidan revolution was a spontaneous organization of the Ukrainian people against an evil and corrupt president who was trying to ally Ukraine with Russia against the EU"
Yes, all of the violent color revolutions we sponsor are spontaneous rebellions of the good against the evil. Everytime! Amazing how that works.
They don't always seem to end that way, but we can always move on.
The Ukranians elected Yanacovich. He choose between two trade deals, one of which he deemed more generous and to the benefit of the constituents in eastern Ukraine who elected him. If the people (read, western Ukrainians that lost the election but wanted to impose their will anyway) don't like the trade deal he choose, they could elect someone else in the next election. That's how rational people act.
You don't respond to not getting the trade legislation you want with a violent overthrow of the government.
Corrupt? Who the fuck in Ukraine isn't corrupt? The guy before Yanacovich was corrupt. The guy after Yanacoivch was corrupt. Zelensky was/is corrupt. There is no moral superiority or greater competence going on in Western Ukraine versus Eastern Ukraine.
If we overthrew our government every time someone felt it was corrupt, oh boy.
The most ridiculous assertion I ever read is that Putin invaded because "people in Russia would look at Ukraine and want what they have". HA! Ukraine was a basket case shithole with 1/3 the GDP/capita of Russia. And it wasn't getting any better after they had their coup. Nobody looks at Ukraine and goes "I want a piece of that".
You know there is a pattern to this. The military complex identifies some "bad guy". Then it paints whoever they are fighting as "the good guy". Are they a good guy? Usually not, you could easily have painted them as "the bad guy" if you wanted. Third world shitholes are like that, there are no good guys, just a bunch of bad guys. But taking sides between two bad guys doesn't sell 1,000% markup 155mm shells.
"Besides, the CIA is grossly incompetent. Russia's intelligence service is good enough that it could easily stop such an attempt."
And yet they managed to orchestrate a coup in Ukraine.
You know the 2014 "liberal" consensus was that Ukraine was another neocon/state to stir shit up to get another war for feed the military contractors. John McCain and Nuland being involved was an obvious tip off.
Unfortunately, liberals have gotten dumber since then. Because Putin elected Trump and doesn't like gays or whatever, we need war.
"Russia has yet to apologize for seizing Crimea in 2014 after lying and saying that the 2014 revolution was a coup."
Putin liberated Russian people in a Russian province after the person they elected was violently overthrown by violent radicals. Those that weren't under Putins protection were subject to violent suppression by the new government in Kiev (see burning people alive in Odessa and the War in the Donbas).
The people of Crimea themselves had their water cut off by Kiev, because nothing says "we care" like trying to turn "your peoples" land into a desert.
The current policy of the government in Kiev is that they plan to violently expel the thousands of people that moved to Crimea since 2014 if they ever manage to take it.
"You literally just described the Russian Army. The Ukrainian army is the one full of patriots literally defending their homes from invaders. The Russian army is full of burnouts and conscripts."
Since the counter offensive (Banzai Charge) failed, even the NYTimes now admits what Ukraine does to "recruit" its conscripts. You can find the videos of the press gangs online.
As a % of the army, Russia has a higher concentration of volunteers compared to Ukraine. I don't think either of these forces are great, but then again I see these countries as roughly equivalent (Ukraine slightly worse). They really are "one people".
"Ukraine" is a random administrative zone of the Soviet Union. Nothing about it or its borders are sacred (in any other context people would write about how they are artificial and should be divided on ethnic lines into separate countries). Nothing about it says "superior governing system". There is literally nothing worth defending.
It's people fight because they are kidnapped off the street. Its military only exists because we are doing all the hard work for them. There is no plan to achieve their objectives nor any strong reason for having those objectives.
I don't know how you people get taken in by this shit. The one thing about libertarians is they are supposed to know all these third world morality tales are a bunch of bullshit to sell defense contracts and not get involved.
While I can buy your premise, its not clear these are great examples.
FDR clearly wanted to go to war with Germany, I don't think the odds of that not happening even without the declaration of war are particularly high (even 5% seems to high).
Given the nature of fighting in the Pacific, there really weren't any resources we sent to Europe that would have made the War in the Pacific go much faster.
Declaring War on Japan after just signing a defense pact with them? Very transparent and won't convince anyone.
The reason I was always given is that Germany was fighting a U-boat war in the Atlantic, that winning that U-boat war was the only reasonable way of keeping American goods from getting to Europe, and that declaring war allowed for more unrestricted U-boat warfare. In fact this early part of the war was considered a good time for the U-boats.
I don't really have a strong opinion on this (Germany is fucked either way), but your counter factual seems absurd.
The list of "impulsive behaviors" is also very subjective, to the point that they need to add "inappropriately" to descriptions, because many of these are behaviors that are sometimes appropriate.
P.S. Your foreign policy writing is very weak. Your not even anti-war like libertarians are supposed to be most of the time.
The Pacific campaign gave us valuable experience w/ amphibious landings, which helped keep D-Day from being even worse than it was.
Byran isn't antiwar? What's an example of a war he has supported?
Ukraine
Really? Cite?
Search both this substack and his twitter for Putin, Ukraine, Russia, etc.
I've certainly read articles by Bryan about how Putin is an evil man, but that doesn't automatically mean Bryan wants the US to attack Russia.
Bryan has stated that Putin is impossible to appease and needs to be confronted.
He specifically chastised Hanania when Ukraine stated over not wanting to support Ukraine.
The context is not lost. Putler wants to conquer the entire world just like Hitler, and any attempt to negotiate is Munich and Appeasement all over again. When he is done with Ukraine, Poland will be next. Bryan echoed the same alarmist rhetoric that was part of the moral panic of the time.
We now know that Ukraine and Russia were close to a peace deal, but the west scuttled it, largely due to the moral panic arguments listed above that Bryan chose to traffic in at the time as well.
Bryan's social circle had a moral panic over Russia. Bravery would have been standing up to that moral panic. Bryan wasn't brave, he bandwagoned. The result has been over a million casualties with no end in sight.
He probably thinks he's brave because he didn't bandwagon over Middle East wars. But Middle East wars were never popular *amongst his social circle*, so there really wasn't any price to pay to be a non-conformist.
He has put out several other pieces arguing that Russia is irrational and dangerous. I've never seen him try to argue to Russia POV or propose a solution it might accept. I have not seen a single comment that criticizes NATO or Ukraine.
Bryan choose to weigh in on this matter. He choose to clearly take a side. He choose to argue for war and confrontation.
If you want to argue that he's right to do those things, go ahead. I can construct a libertarian argument for war (I don't think it applies here, but such an argument exists). But let's not deny them.
In Bryan's reply to Hanania, he was talking about if appeasement could have prevented the war entirely, and concluded that it could not, mainly because Putin wouldn't even give concrete demands that could be appeased. He is completely right, the alleged "peace deal" you mentioned was a cease-fire after the war had been ongoing, not a deal to prevent the war entirely.
I looked further into your claims that there was a "peace deal" that was "scuttled by the west." The idea appears to have come from the comments of an Israeli diplomat named Naftali Bennett, who implied in one interview that a cease fire might have been possible at one point in March 2022, weeks after the war had been going on, but US and UK diplomats thought it was a bad idea that wouldn't work. Bennett later clarified these claims in another interview, saying that no cease-fire agreement had been reached or was even close, he meant that US and UK diplomats had thought it was a bad idea in the early stages of discussing options. Bennett also clarified that it was revelation of Russian war crimes that put an end to the talks, not anything the West did. It's not likely that the West would have any power to prevent a cease-fire if Ukraine and Russia wanted it. It looks like pro-Russian news services took these comments out of context and tried to spin them into some stupid nonsense about the West prolonging the war.
As to the idea that a cease fire wouldn't have worked, it's probably right. Remember that the threat of Ukraine joining the Club of Countries that Russia is Not Allowed to Invade (or NATO, as it is commonly called), was a major justification Putin has used for the war. Why would Putin be opposed to Ukraine joining the Russia Can't Invade Us Club unless he wanted to make sure invasion was an option in the future? Russia has nukes, NATO poses absolutely no offensive threat to them, the "threat" it poses is to Russian military adventurism.
No one seriously believes, as you assert, that Putin is a Hitler-level threat, but he is a threat to the peace of the local region around Russia. This isn't a "moral panic," Russia has actually invaded other areas in the local region before. One of Putin's allies in government literally said that Poland was next. It makes sense that the same social circles who opposed wars in the Middle East would support Ukrainian self-defense, because the wars in the Middle East were examples of stupid American adventurism and the war in Ukraine is stupid Russian adventurism. They aren't being conformist, they are consistently opposing stupid military adventurism, regardless of what country does it.
Bryan hasn't really criticized NATO or Ukraine, but what is there to criticize? NATO done an admirable job of staying out of the war and prevent it from escalating, while providing material aid for Ukraine to defend themselves. Ukraine has done an astoundingly job of defending themselves. There is nothing Ukraine did wrong to provoke Russia into attacking them, they were attacked because Putin is a pathetic madman with fever dreams of conquest.
Bryan has argued that Putin is irrational and dangerous, but that is not because Bryan is pro-war, it is because he is pro-facts. From a Russian POV, what would be in their people's interest is to never have started the war in the first place, and to end it, pack up, and go home once it is started. The reason that that isn't even on the table is that Putin is an irrational Russian nationalist who cares more about the glory and prestige of the Russian government and military than he does about the welfare and safety of the Russian people.
"he was talking about if appeasement could have prevented the war entirely, and concluded that it could not, mainly because Putin wouldn't even give concrete demands that could be appeased"
Putin did make concrete demands, and we denied them. We did not for instance agree to withdraw future NATO membership, to stop arming and training the Ukranians (which we were consistently doing from 2014-2022), or to abide by the Minsk treaty.
More generally, there has been no apology for our 2014 assistance in the overthrow of the Ukranian government.
---
In a surprise visit to Ukraine on 9 April, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said "Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with," and that the collective West was not willing to make a deal with Putin. Three days after Johnson left Kyiv, Putin stated publicly that talks with Ukraine "had turned into a dead end".
---
"Russia has nukes, NATO poses absolutely no offensive threat to them, the "threat" it poses is to Russian military adventurism."
We have nukes. We could use them to defend Taiwan. And yet we are build and maintain giant fleets to defend them. Why bother, we have nukes? It's a legitimate question, one I even feel some affinity towards.
But the reason people give is that using nukes is a dangerous and devastating way to plan a national defense. If you entire strategy is NUKES, you really limit your options.
What if China blockades Taiwan? Would we nuke Shanghai? What would happen if we did that? It sure would be nice if we had strategic options other than that, which is why we have a conventional force.
Similarly, let's say we get into a war with China. Russia decides to sell China energy. We bomb their energy facilities to stop this. A war starts. Man, it would sure be nice to have a strategic depth if that happens rather than having a nuke only strategy. Guess it's time to turn your own country into an irradiated wasteland to stop the invading armies.
Or let's take something more straightforward. We helped overthrow the government in Ukraine in 2014. We've made it clear we would like to overthrow the government in Moscow for a long time now, even before this war. We openly supported that drunk Yeltsin in the 1990s while we walked over every agreement we ever had with Russia. We have a pattern of supporting color revolutions and overthrowing governments around the world. What would you take away from that? What if we astroturf a revolution in Russia, then support it from our new base in Ukraine.
Can you imagine what the USA would have done it Russia sponsored a coup in Mexico and then armed them? I guarantee we would have invaded Mexico by now. Remember what we did over Cuba?
You act like this decision came out of nowhere. "Adventurism". As if there were no history at all leading up to it. As if Putin could have done all this on his own with no buy in from anyone else in Russia, rather then something that had broad support in Russia (which every single diplomat tells us is true).
"No one seriously believes, as you assert, that Putin is a Hitler-level threat"
The Biden White House literally says this.
"they were attacked because Putin is a pathetic madman with fever dreams of conquest."
You literally say this.
"NATO done an admirable job of staying out of the war and prevent it from escalating"
NATO could stay out of the war by no longer being involved in the war. No weapons. No intelligence. No funding.
"Ukraine has done an astoundingly job of defending themselves."
Ukraine has a slave army of conscripts shanghaied off the street against their will. Anyone with $5k to their name bribes their way out of the country. They can't even vote.
Slave army + western built weapons and intelligence has allowed them to rack up a million casualties across both sides with no end in sight.
Couldn't you easily tell yourself a different story? That the people of western Ukraine democratically elected their president, only to have a foreign backed color revolution violently overthrow him. The new government was a bunch of incompetent oligarchs that discriminated against Russians and used violence to keep eastern Ukraine from seceding over their coup. That Kiev now kidnaps people off the street to die in the mud trying to liberate a bunch of people that don't want to be liberated.
Libertarians are supposed to be to smart to meddle in other countries politics and take sides in civil conflicts.
"but what is there to criticize?"
NATO should have dissolved itself in 1991.
The west should not have meddled in Ukrainian politics. John McCain and Victoria Nuland should not have been in Maiden Square telling people to violently overthrow their government. The west should not have supported any of the groups that favored the coup. It should not have offered arms and training to Ukraine.
The west should have minded its own business and not been involved.
The west should immediately cut Ukraine off of support, bringing an end to the war. Without western support they will be forced to negotiate.
That's the quickest and best way to end the war.
If Bryan feels I'm wrong. If he supports American foreign policy in Ukraine, he can just say so. If not, he can say what he would have done/would do differently.
Saying that "Putin can't be appeased" implies that war was inevitable no matter what we did and that it has to be fought until total victory. It paints the other person as a wholly illogical actor immune to incentives, does he really believe this?
If he supports what has been done and wants to continue doing it, then I would say he is an interventionist that helped bring on a war through international meddling that was none of our business and now works to continue that war.
It is of course possible to have a different opinion. John Mersheimer noted that our actions in Ukraine would lead to war and it would be devastating for everyone involved. He doesn't think Putin is Hitler and wants to invade Poland next, and that he could have been appeased with simple actions that would seem perfectly logical if you reversed the roles. That's what bravery looks like. When everyone is calling you a Putler apologist, you try to talk sense into people to stop the killing.
"Putin did make concrete demands"
Putin offered his opinions on various American actions in Ukraine, but didn't make a concrete threat of "obey me or I invade." On the contrary, he denied plans to invade, so much so that his own troops were unaware of any plans until they were already crossing the border.
"More generally, there has been no apology for our 2014 assistance in the overthrow of the Ukranian government."
Would you ask Stanley Kubrick to apologize for helping fake the moon landing, or for Elvis Presley to apologize for faking his death and knocking up Bigfoot? Would you ask Ted Cruz to apologize for murders he committed when he was the Zodiac Killer? America can't apologize for doing something it didn't do, just because conspiracy theorists accuse it of doing it.
The Maidan revolution was a spontaneous organization of the Ukrainian people against an evil and corrupt president who was trying to ally Ukraine with Russia against the EU, even though that was the literal opposite of what the people wanted him to do. I'm sure America offered moral support at the time, and they were glad to see Yanukovych gone, but that isn't the same as overthrowing the government. If anything America should probably apologize for not doing more to help the Ukrainian people restore their freedom.
Russia has yet to apologize for seizing Crimea in 2014 after lying and saying that the 2014 revolution was a coup. That is why America did not give in to Putin's demands to stop among and training Ukrainians, because they knew Putin wouldn't stop at Crimea, since he is crazy.
"But the reason people give is that using nukes is a dangerous and devastating way to plan a national defense."
It's a dangerous way to defend allies, but it seems reasonable to threaten to use nukes if the homeland is invaded. Russia never need fear an unprovoked invasion by NATO because of its nukes. The reason that Putin feels "threatened" by Ukraine joining the Club of Nations Russia Isn't Allowed to Invade is because he's butthurt that he can't invade the nations in that club.
"We have a pattern of supporting color revolutions and overthrowing governments around the world. What would you take away from that? What if we astroturf a revolution in Russia, then support it from our new base in Ukraine."
If that was what Putin is afraid of, then he really blew it. Because of his actions, we now have bases in Finland to support it from, and will probably have bases in Sweden soon as well. Plus, we already had Estonia, Norway, Latvia, and Lithuania bordering Russia. Would having Ukraine too really make a difference?
Besides, the CIA is grossly incompetent. Russia's intelligence service is good enough that it could easily stop such an attempt.
"Can you imagine what the USA would have done it Russia sponsored a coup in Mexico and then armed them? "
Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia were already NATO members that border Russia, and had been since 2004, and Norway's been a member since 1949. It would be pretty weird if the USA had attacked Mexico if Canada, Guatemala, Belize, and the Bahamas had already been allied with Russia for 15 years. Why pick on them in particular?
"You act like this decision came out of nowhere. "Adventurism". As if there were no history at all leading up to it. As if Putin could have done all this on his own with no buy in from anyone else in Russia, rather then something that had broad support in Russia"
It did come out of nowhere. Everyone was shocked, even Russians, when Putin ordered an invasion. Putin isolated himself for the past few years because of fear of assassination and fear of COVID, so he's been making tons of unhinged decisions with buy-in only from yes-men. The history leading up to it has mostly been the history of Ukraine trying to figure out how to defend itself from Putin, which "provokes" him by making him think he needs to invade before it gets too hard to do. Just not invading isn't an option for him, because he's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
"You literally say this."
I said Putin was a local threat who could seriously mess up Europe and parts of Asia if left unchecked. There is no danger of him conquering the entire Earth, like there was with Hitler. He isn't a Hitler-level threat, but he is a big threat.
"Ukraine has a slave army of conscripts shanghaied off the street against their will. Anyone with $5k to their name bribes their way out of the country."
You literally just described the Russian Army. The Ukrainian army is the one full of patriots literally defending their homes from invaders. The Russian army is full of burnouts and conscripts.
"That the people of western Ukraine democratically elected their president, only to have a foreign backed color revolution violently overthrow him. The new government was a bunch of incompetent oligarchs"
The people of Ukraine democratically elected their president and then threw him out in a revolution when he turned out to be a crook. It is true that the new government took a few election cycles to purge all the corruption, but they actually did really well.
One common theory as to why Putin thought attacking Ukraine was a good idea was that he surrounded himself with yes-men who didn't update him about the success of Ukraine's anti-corruption measures. He thought he was going to be fighting a corrupt government with no popular support that would roll over easily, not a government backed by its people.
"NATO should have dissolved itself in 1991."
Before 1991 NATO was the "Countries the USSR Isn't Allowed to Invade Club." After 1991 it smoothly transitioned into the "Countries that Russia Isn't Allowed to Invade Club." That's an important function, since Russia keeps getting taken over by crazy militarists. There's no reason for Russia to feel threatened by other countries joining the club, unless its leaders really want to invade them (which they do).
"The west should not have meddled in Ukrainian politics. John McCain and Victoria Nuland should not have been in Maiden Square telling people to violently overthrow their government. "
John McCain and Victor Nuland are entitled to voice whatever opinions they want about what the Ukrainian people ought to do. They have no power in Ukraine, if they tell the Ukrainians to overthrow the government, the Ukrainians can just ignore them. The only reason the Ukrainian people didn't ignore them was that they already wanted to overthrow their government, because their president was betraying them to Putin.
"Saying that "Putin can't be appeased" implies that war was inevitable no matter what we did and that it has to be fought until total victory. It paints the other person as a wholly illogical actor immune to incentives, does he really believe this?"
Crazy is a spectrum. Putin is not a wholly illogical actor who is immune to incentives, but he is an extremely illogical actor who is highly resistant to incentives. War was inevitable because the only incentives big enough to stop him from invading Ukraine were incentives so horrible that they obviously aren't worth it, like nuclear war with the USA. There was no incentive that was simultaneously big enough to stop him from invading, and small enough that it wouldn't be worse than the invasion. It might be possible to stop him short of total victory, Ukraine has definitely made progress by humiliating the Russian army in the field of battle.
"The Maidan revolution was a spontaneous organization of the Ukrainian people against an evil and corrupt president who was trying to ally Ukraine with Russia against the EU"
Yes, all of the violent color revolutions we sponsor are spontaneous rebellions of the good against the evil. Everytime! Amazing how that works.
They don't always seem to end that way, but we can always move on.
The Ukranians elected Yanacovich. He choose between two trade deals, one of which he deemed more generous and to the benefit of the constituents in eastern Ukraine who elected him. If the people (read, western Ukrainians that lost the election but wanted to impose their will anyway) don't like the trade deal he choose, they could elect someone else in the next election. That's how rational people act.
You don't respond to not getting the trade legislation you want with a violent overthrow of the government.
Corrupt? Who the fuck in Ukraine isn't corrupt? The guy before Yanacovich was corrupt. The guy after Yanacoivch was corrupt. Zelensky was/is corrupt. There is no moral superiority or greater competence going on in Western Ukraine versus Eastern Ukraine.
If we overthrew our government every time someone felt it was corrupt, oh boy.
The most ridiculous assertion I ever read is that Putin invaded because "people in Russia would look at Ukraine and want what they have". HA! Ukraine was a basket case shithole with 1/3 the GDP/capita of Russia. And it wasn't getting any better after they had their coup. Nobody looks at Ukraine and goes "I want a piece of that".
You know there is a pattern to this. The military complex identifies some "bad guy". Then it paints whoever they are fighting as "the good guy". Are they a good guy? Usually not, you could easily have painted them as "the bad guy" if you wanted. Third world shitholes are like that, there are no good guys, just a bunch of bad guys. But taking sides between two bad guys doesn't sell 1,000% markup 155mm shells.
"Besides, the CIA is grossly incompetent. Russia's intelligence service is good enough that it could easily stop such an attempt."
And yet they managed to orchestrate a coup in Ukraine.
You know the 2014 "liberal" consensus was that Ukraine was another neocon/state to stir shit up to get another war for feed the military contractors. John McCain and Nuland being involved was an obvious tip off.
Unfortunately, liberals have gotten dumber since then. Because Putin elected Trump and doesn't like gays or whatever, we need war.
"Russia has yet to apologize for seizing Crimea in 2014 after lying and saying that the 2014 revolution was a coup."
Putin liberated Russian people in a Russian province after the person they elected was violently overthrown by violent radicals. Those that weren't under Putins protection were subject to violent suppression by the new government in Kiev (see burning people alive in Odessa and the War in the Donbas).
The people of Crimea themselves had their water cut off by Kiev, because nothing says "we care" like trying to turn "your peoples" land into a desert.
The current policy of the government in Kiev is that they plan to violently expel the thousands of people that moved to Crimea since 2014 if they ever manage to take it.
"You literally just described the Russian Army. The Ukrainian army is the one full of patriots literally defending their homes from invaders. The Russian army is full of burnouts and conscripts."
Since the counter offensive (Banzai Charge) failed, even the NYTimes now admits what Ukraine does to "recruit" its conscripts. You can find the videos of the press gangs online.
As a % of the army, Russia has a higher concentration of volunteers compared to Ukraine. I don't think either of these forces are great, but then again I see these countries as roughly equivalent (Ukraine slightly worse). They really are "one people".
"Ukraine" is a random administrative zone of the Soviet Union. Nothing about it or its borders are sacred (in any other context people would write about how they are artificial and should be divided on ethnic lines into separate countries). Nothing about it says "superior governing system". There is literally nothing worth defending.
It's people fight because they are kidnapped off the street. Its military only exists because we are doing all the hard work for them. There is no plan to achieve their objectives nor any strong reason for having those objectives.
I don't know how you people get taken in by this shit. The one thing about libertarians is they are supposed to know all these third world morality tales are a bunch of bullshit to sell defense contracts and not get involved.