The war has gone on for 3+ years, and it still has two participant nations, with “Ukraine’s allies and friends standing with it” nowhere in sight. No western soldiers dying, but Ukrainian soldiers dying, - it’s a demonstration of values too.
Other than that any real war treats fit men as a resource. Such a flight will happen in any country at war with conscription, when its population knows what war is.
A functional military doesn’t do superman shit, it doesn’t have irreplaceable heroes and it doesn’t use smarts. It’s a pipeline. Nobody wants to be fed to it if they can avoid that.
Most of all - those Europeans cheering how they “stand with Ukraine”. But they haven’t been taught to keep their fucking mouth shut about standing with anyone if they are writing comments and that someone is under bombs.
So I thought before 2020 that western values are “if we have the same idea of good, we die for you, you die for us”, even if I wasn’t sure if anyone really shares that, I thought the western public kinda remembers something of that.
Then war in Artsakh happened, and I understood all about western values, western ability to keep their word they chose to give, western honor and what will happen with all that. Just all thieves and cowards, who seem civilized by inertia from robbing half the world. The economic and demographic dynamics show that this won’t happen again.
Well, not only western, but in general, it turned out that for most Russians alliances matter nothing if the other side is some people who “disrespect them” - how nice, yes, so if I don’t like how a Russian talks, I have the right to not pay them for work or deny them, say, a floating jacket when they are drowning … ah, oops, it’s different, “too much honor for some kebab makers” - that was said by a person for all supposedly good in Russia, against Putin and such, about alliance obligations. These people don’t even understand that fulfilling obligations and being decent people is all about their own honor, and if something is “too much honor” for someone, you shouldn’t give your word.
So - for Ukrainians it was naturally easier to believe in some “western values” because the west was seemingly helping them, and saying many nice things.
But I think now they are done with that.
We’ll have a world where all the politics will function after Conrad von Wallenstein’s army, because to restore understanding of honor you should first impress with all the weight upon humanity, in practice and thoroughly, what role honor fulfills.
No model is absolutely precise, and no pyramid of modelling to avoid full cost will rid you of need for real feedback. That works for everything in history.
I expect there’s going to be a severe backlash against the west in Ukraine when the war is over and they realize they’ve just been cynically used as cannon fodder to right Russia.
There already is, it seems. Just people bombing them are not the west.
But yes, in the end result what Putin’s propaganda voices were saying turns out to be correct. Not in case of Ukraine during the war (that’s war propaganda, it’s always crazy), but before it.
I have a pet conspiracy theory, if you wish:
Either they are this inept or they don’t need Ukraine as an equal ally, and see it being weakened as a good outcome. I don’t think a group of nations still making up the world’s economic and technological leadership can be this inept. So Ukraine is seen as an enemy best weakened.
They can’t expect Ukraine to attack them, that would be crazy. Or to ally with their adversaries, it doesn’t have many options. Meaning there’s something brewing with the western nations preparing to piss off a loosely defined group of nations, including Ukraine. Piss off so significantly that weakening it is a good idea.
So the conspiracy theory would be that the west intends to start “WW3: Nuclear drone boogaloo” soon enough. Because their dictatorial, aggressive and in general very bad enemies are not hurrying with this, and are doing just fine winning economically. And the war must start and result in the victory of those most deserving, that is, those with the best global military logistics and the biggest nuclear arsenals.
That’s not bad, but might ignore the factors of madness and despair and plain arrogance. Sort of like WWII shouldn’t have started, and shouldn’t have prolonged once it started, and then there were plenty of points where it made sense to stop for all involved.
The war has gone on for 3+ years, and it still has two participant nations, with “Ukraine’s allies and friends standing with it” nowhere in sight. No western soldiers dying, but Ukrainian soldiers dying, - it’s a demonstration of values too.
Other than that any real war treats fit men as a resource. Such a flight will happen in any country at war with conscription, when its population knows what war is.
A functional military doesn’t do superman shit, it doesn’t have irreplaceable heroes and it doesn’t use smarts. It’s a pipeline. Nobody wants to be fed to it if they can avoid that.
Most of all - those Europeans cheering how they “stand with Ukraine”. But they haven’t been taught to keep their fucking mouth shut about standing with anyone if they are writing comments and that someone is under bombs.
So I thought before 2020 that western values are “if we have the same idea of good, we die for you, you die for us”, even if I wasn’t sure if anyone really shares that, I thought the western public kinda remembers something of that.
Then war in Artsakh happened, and I understood all about western values, western ability to keep their word they chose to give, western honor and what will happen with all that. Just all thieves and cowards, who seem civilized by inertia from robbing half the world. The economic and demographic dynamics show that this won’t happen again.
Well, not only western, but in general, it turned out that for most Russians alliances matter nothing if the other side is some people who “disrespect them” - how nice, yes, so if I don’t like how a Russian talks, I have the right to not pay them for work or deny them, say, a floating jacket when they are drowning … ah, oops, it’s different, “too much honor for some kebab makers” - that was said by a person for all supposedly good in Russia, against Putin and such, about alliance obligations. These people don’t even understand that fulfilling obligations and being decent people is all about their own honor, and if something is “too much honor” for someone, you shouldn’t give your word.
So - for Ukrainians it was naturally easier to believe in some “western values” because the west was seemingly helping them, and saying many nice things.
But I think now they are done with that.
We’ll have a world where all the politics will function after Conrad von Wallenstein’s army, because to restore understanding of honor you should first impress with all the weight upon humanity, in practice and thoroughly, what role honor fulfills.
No model is absolutely precise, and no pyramid of modelling to avoid full cost will rid you of need for real feedback. That works for everything in history.
I expect there’s going to be a severe backlash against the west in Ukraine when the war is over and they realize they’ve just been cynically used as cannon fodder to right Russia.
There already is, it seems. Just people bombing them are not the west.
But yes, in the end result what Putin’s propaganda voices were saying turns out to be correct. Not in case of Ukraine during the war (that’s war propaganda, it’s always crazy), but before it.
I have a pet conspiracy theory, if you wish:
Either they are this inept or they don’t need Ukraine as an equal ally, and see it being weakened as a good outcome. I don’t think a group of nations still making up the world’s economic and technological leadership can be this inept. So Ukraine is seen as an enemy best weakened.
They can’t expect Ukraine to attack them, that would be crazy. Or to ally with their adversaries, it doesn’t have many options. Meaning there’s something brewing with the western nations preparing to piss off a loosely defined group of nations, including Ukraine. Piss off so significantly that weakening it is a good idea.
So the conspiracy theory would be that the west intends to start “WW3: Nuclear drone boogaloo” soon enough. Because their dictatorial, aggressive and in general very bad enemies are not hurrying with this, and are doing just fine winning economically. And the war must start and result in the victory of those most deserving, that is, those with the best global military logistics and the biggest nuclear arsenals.
I don’t think it’s just Ukraine actually. Here’s my take on the whole thing https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-us-pivot-to-asia-and-europes
That’s not bad, but might ignore the factors of madness and despair and plain arrogance. Sort of like WWII shouldn’t have started, and shouldn’t have prolonged once it started, and then there were plenty of points where it made sense to stop for all involved.
For sure, these things always take on a life of their own and they’re impossible to control.