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“The Case Against Western Military Assistance to Ukraine”
A superb essay (link below) that constitutes a valuable contribution to this matter. The author painstakingly (and, in my view, compellingly) lays his out arguments for the following propositions:
- It’s extremely unlikely that, had the West not helped Ukraine, Russia would have attacked a NATO member next
- Western military assistance to Ukraine makes proliferation more, not less, likely
- Providing military assistance to Ukraine is not cheap once you take into account the indirect costs
- The argument that committing to Ukraine’s defense was necessary to deter wars of aggression is flawed
- The argument from credibility is a self-fulfilling prophecy and a recipe for the sunk cost fallacy
Link:
https://philippelemoine.substack.com/p/the-case-against-western-military
Published in General
I only had time to skim most of the essay, though I did read the first argument more closely. Lemoine has a good case for that point, and as I skimmed the rest of the sections his arguments for those points seemed compelling.
It will be interesting to see who responds to the summation you provided, and who addresses the actual points made deeper in the sections of the essay.
More of the latter, I dearly hope.
Is this directed at me? There are only three or four people on Ricochet who support aid to Ukraine. That’s why I’m asking.
I don’t mean to sound like an egomaniac. I have come to realize that this is a topic I need to stay away from. The majority opinion on Ricochet is very strongly against aid to Ukraine. There’s little point in my ticking people off or being a target for their anger.
I am trying to stay out of any discussions on Ukraine from now on.
That’s all my lack of response means. Certainly the author makes many valid points, but the issue is really simple to me. I can’t get past the fact that Russia wants to incorporate or annex Ukraine into Russia and Ukraine wants to remain independent. In my mind, that’s end of it. I support Ukraine. Russia, go home.
That said, it is a complex issue with many dimensions. I respect the discussion of those issues. They are just not for me. I’m a bottom-line kind of person. :)
You may rest assured that when I decided to post this essay here, I did not think of you at all.
Is there any consideration of Just War morality or supporting a war for profit of special interests?
With all respect, have you read the essay?
Emotionally, I’m for supporting Ukraine because they have justice and morality on their side.
Logically, I’m in favor of Ukraine because it is costing the Russian aggressor a lot of military capability and is an enormous drain on the Russian economy.
It’s an enormous drain on our economy, too.
And logically, I’m against it because I consider who’s running this show, and I understand that they are evil people.
Lemonine addresses some of this in the 3rd section. An excerpt:
The essay addresses both of those justifications. Please share your critique thereof, if and when you’re so inclined.
I don’t agree that Ukraine has justice and morality on their side. I guess that it depends on your criteria for determining justice and morality.
I should add that I don’t find justice or morality to be very important in matters of war and peace, any more. Maybe I’ve just become cynical about those who have claimed to have justice and morality on their side in the past. I used to believe in such claims. I now view them as a hypocritical cover for the pursuit of practical interest.
It’s also unclear to me why you like the idea of hurting Russia. There seems to be a lot of hatred of Russia going around. This attitude seems, to me, to justify Russian security concerns. They have reason to believe that we wish them harm — with “we” being the US and the West generally, though no longer me personally.
Marci, that’s an interesting view. My own impression, from the opposite side, is that the majority opinion here at Ricochet is very supportive of Ukraine.
It’s possible that my impression may be incorrect. The situation may be more complex. It may be that the majority opinion feels strongly in Ukraine’s favor, as I do not, but it’s possible that a number of people with such feelings are not supportive of much action on our part.
It is true that our political leaders strongly support the Ukrainian side, including giving both military and non-military aid, right? I think that there has been quite a bit of bipartisan support for such aid.
I don’t know, Jerry. All good questions.
I’m unconvinced. Having Ukraine doesn’t make Russia an empire. But not having Ukraine means that there isn’t and won’t be a Russian Empire. And Putin most assuredly wants a Russian Empire. From Chechnya to Georgia to Kazakhstan to now Ukraine he’s made no secret of his willingness to use force to reassemble the planets in orbit around Russia. Read Alexsandr Dugin. Putin seeks to create and lead a EurAsian empire. That means bringing to heel Poland and Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania. If the West proved unwilling to spend some money assisting Ukraine, Putin would conclude – and rightly so – that the West would not be willing to lose lives over Estonia. And Estonia / Latvia / Lithuania are the next logical targets. They meet the exact same criteria as the alleged Ukrainian “threat.” They are NATO countries bordering Russia. And Lithuania /Poland completely surround the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad. Once NATO proved itself useless in Estonia Latvia and Lithuania…the rest of Europe wouldn’t need to be fought for…they’d bend the knee.
Read Dugin.
Punching back – defending oneself – is not hurting someone for no reason.
Read the essay in the OP.
I was referring to its dampening Putin’s expansionist ambitions. He apparently believed that he could conquer Ukraine in less than a week, according to the reports I read at the beginning of his invasion, and didn’t intend to stop with Ukraine. He has certainly had to rein in his ambitions.
I read the table of contents, which is why I asked. Skimming article now I see there is no effort to address Just War morality or the morality of not pursuing peace. That’s OK. However, I do think that the morality of pursuing war is a primary consideration and no “case against assistance” can be complete without it. Huge caveat on the term “assistance”. That could be anything from an encouraging note to ICBMs. Nothing is a binary. There are no solutions, only trade-offs.
It is about trade-offs. Biden has certainly eliminated the possibility of making Russia an ally like they have been in the past. It is better to have Russia as an ally than slightly weakened partner of China, which was US policy for a lifetime.
He is completely mistaken in his appraisal on nuclear proliferation. Many nations could make a nuclear weapons easily but don’t b/c they feel safe behind the security guarantees of the US. A US that fails to stop major aggression in Europe will not be seen as a reliable partner-we just had a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Biden administration has not seriously improved US military readiness. Japan, ROK and some European nations could easily see nukes as a cheaper and more reliable alternative to large scale rearmament-not to mention an unpopular draft. Poland and the Nordic & Baltic states are particularly threatened by Russian aggressiveness & could reasonably conclude that if Ukraine kept its large nuclear arsenal it would not now be under genocidal assault.
Would you find the prospect of a President K Harris reassuring if you where anywhere near the Russian border?
I did. As I said I’m unconvinced.
One way to disarm a population with 400million guns is to eliminate all the ammo by creating shortage of key ingredients in America. What wouldn’t Biden do?
Russia might have a federation, but that ain’t no empire. They will never lead in EurAsia no matter what Dugan professes. No NATO countries are at any risk. That is a weak strawman.
Do you have a link? Does he refute some of the points Lemoine made?
There is a lot to digest in this article. I disagree with some of his conclusions, but it is well written and I think I agree with some of his points. I’ll have to think about it some more before responding other than to say thanks for sharing the link it is always helpful to have contrasting points of view.
We have been trying to make Russia an ally since then end of the cold war with respect I don’t think it is possible. Russia sees its path as separate and antithetical to ours. Allying with China makes sense for them. I think the idea that Russia was ever going to be anything more than coolly neutral to the US is as much wishful thinking as liberalized trade policies would lead to an open and democratic China.
Said reports were based on a leak of Gen. Mulley’s closed-door Congressional briefing in early Feb ’22, in which he opined that Putin could take Kiev within a week. This then … abracadabra! … morphed into the continually promulgated since then “Putin the crazy megalomaniac thought he could take Kiev in 3 days, a week tops. Hah hah!”.
Similarly, the “Putin won’t stop with Ukraine. If Kiev falls, Warsaw is next!” narrative is a connect-the-dots exercise, whereby the dots are snippets selectively plucked from this or that speech/interview he’s made/given over the last 20 years. Prime example: his statement in a 2005 essay that the collapse of the Soviet Union as a geopolitical catastrophe, which got turned into the “Aha! He wants to reconstitute the USSR!” narrative that keeps getting regurgitated far and wide, most recently by Trump’s last DodSec, Mark Esper, on FOX News last week.
I look forward to your thoughts/critiques.
Thank you in return.
Dugin is a Russian political philosopher. The quip is that he’s Putin’s brain. FYI it’s Dugin’s daughter who was killed in a much reported car bombing last year. The speculation is that Dugin was the target.
I don’t know of much online. His seminal work is a 1997 “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia”
A 2017 RAND Corporation report titled “Russian Views of the International Order” assessed the “Dugin is Putin’s brain” narrative, and found it wanting. Relevant exerpts:
“Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the most-visible proponents of Eurasianist ideas are Russian intellectuals Aleksandr Dugin and Aleksandr Panarin, each of whom argued for a version of reintegration of the post-Soviet space into a “Eurasian” sphere of influence for Russia. The Eurasianists are sometimes cited as influential in the development of Russia’s military and foreign policy discourse, including the development of Russia’s activity in Ukraine,12 but they do not appear to directly influence governance. … Furthermore, while Dugin is reported to have connections and ties with Russian officials, including the Russian military leadership,22 and although Russian leaders may cite his work or ideas, it does not appear that he is directly influential in Russian policymaking. He is perhaps best thought of as an extremist provocateur with some limited and peripheral impact than as an influential analyst with a direct impact on policy. He does not appear to have direct involvement with the major political parties—such as United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and Rodina—advocating antiWestern and aggressive regional policies.23 He was also removed from his position at Moscow State University after calling for the killing of Ukrainian nationalists, and he has offered significant criticism of Putin’s policies in Ukraine.24 … There is a significant consensus of views within Russia that is shared not only by the regime and mainstream think tanks but also by the Russian military. There are, of course, nuances in views about particular issues, but many Russian officials and analysts share the view that the U.S.-led order is increasingly threatening Russian interests in its near abroad. There are members of the opposition in Russia who advocate policies that are more pro-Western, but these individuals appear few in number and not particularly influential. There are also more extreme views in the other direction—notably, the Eurasianist perspectives of Dugin and Panarin. But even though mainstream analysts and the regime do reference Eurasianist ideas and thinkers, these theorists do not seem especially influential.”
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1800/RR1826/RAND_RR1826.pdf