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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
My goodness. You promised to read the essay, carefully consider its arguments, and then provide your own carefully considered thoughts/critiques in response, and … YOU KEPT YOUR PROMISE.
Thank you for that, “Raxxalan”. Without regard to whether I agree or not with your thoughts/critiques (don’t know yet; will take some time, I’m afraid), therefore, I say this wholeheartedly:
You are a mensch.
Raxxalan’s summary and critique of the article is excellent. Everyone here has treated the underlying article with respect for its good faith reasoning, even when we disagree with it.
The CBP has stopped patrolling the border under Biden. They merely drive newcomers to the processing centers. In the rankings, CBP is behind Uber, but ahead of Lyft /jk
Fox News thinks it is $196. But that figure was from last month.
Okay, we’re all shaking hands like gentlemen, it’s a productive discussion…good!
We’ll still disagree, of course.
to date Not near $200B- at least try to use correct figures. Those Fox figures include future (possible) funding. So far about half actually given. If you think the US administration is unreliable why include “vapor” wear?
We’re basically paying the Border Patrol to hand out court summonses and welfare applications to illegals.
To be clear though that is a policy decision by this administration. It may not even be a legal policy decision; however, with a divided government and the standing rules being what they are I doubt we could hold the Biden Administration to account on that point, so it isn’t as if we would be spending money on our border absent Ukraine. Even if Ukraine were not being funded at all the Biden administration would not be taking steps to secure the southern border of the US. I get as frustrated about that as most folks here, but it is a strawman to say we aren’t securing the southern border because of Ukraine. We aren’t securing the southern border because the democrats don’t want to secure it.
Thank you. Also thanks again for finding this article. It helped me clarify my thinking quite a bit on this issue.
One of the things engaging with this particular article showed me is that a lot of this is going to be a prudential set of decisions based on priors. It is going to be very difficult coming to a consensus on this because people have different priors, views, and underlying opinions. None of these things are wrong, because they are essentially subjective and based on a predictive view of what happens next verses what would happen absent what was done. It may be that they are proven wrong after the fact; however, with luck we won’t have a demonstration of this in the short term.
The point is that spending on X while ignoring Y is offensive to some. The point is not that X excludes Y. Everyone knows it is a choice and some people don’t like the choice. (does algebra make it more clear?)
The US govt. has a reliable track record of spending money that has been appropriated. Maybe it will change this year, but until it changes we should all assume that all money appropriated will get spent.
There’s “spending” and then there’s “disappearing into someone’s personal coffers.” I think the govt. excels at the latter.
I wasn’t disputing your point per, se. I too am upset that the democrats refuse to defend the southern border. I am just saying that I see this argument a lot in the Media on our side of the aisle and it is something of a fallacy.
FIFY
But it’s pointless – even counterproductive – to somehow blame (spending on) Ukraine when the real problem is the Dimocrats.
Tell that to the covid “stimulus” money. Last I heard, a majority of that hasn’t actually been spent yet.
I heard $91 Billion was left. Total Covid money was trillions. Single digit percentage is not spent yet.
I don’t remember all the details, but seems like the amount allocated for “education” – making schools safer, etc – is a larger amount unspent, and a larger share of the total amount that was allocated.
According to this gov’t page, about 4.1T has been spent out of the 4.5T allocated.
https://www.usaspending.gov/disaster/covid-19?publicLaw=all
I’m not sure if that’s entirely accurate. They might consider the “education” money “spent” if they sent it to the various institutions responsible for the school spending. But if those institutions haven’t actually spent it yet – on upgrading school buildings etc, like they were supposed to – then it’s not really spent.
Very true. I have a feeling we mere mortals will never really know the true numbers.
There are two views of Putin in contention on the Right.
“Putin is a noble champion of Russia, Orthodoxy, and heterosexuality!”
“Putin is as bad as Hitler!”
I have a different comparison. George W. Bush. Remember him? He was faced with a genuine menace–Islamic terrorism–but over reacted, took badly informed advice, and voluntarily launched a war the country didn’t need. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed. It’s been twenty years now. How does that all look?
Ricochetti who despise the NeoCons fail to see the degree to which Putin is following his own Cyrillic version of the NeoCon playbook.
Remember “Let them hate us as long as they fear us”? They still hate us in the middle east. No matter how this ends, twenty years from now, Russians will still be hated in Ukraine.
The threat that Putin is responding to in Ukraine is that of sharing 1,200 miles of border with a country that its principal geopolitical adversary (the US) has been gaining increasing control over and (let’s not fool ourselves) intends to absorb into its “defensive” military alliance (NATO) at the earliest opportunity. Furthermore, Russia would lose its main warm water naval base in Crimea (Sevastopol). IOW, an existential threat. As existential a threat as a scenario involving China and Mexico (with which we share about 1,900 miles of border) embarking on plans to enter into a “defensive” military alliance (involving joint military training/exercises, a Chinese-controlled naval/air base or two on the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts, etc.) would pose to the US. To which existential threat, I highly suspect (and certainly hope), we would respond in “¡No más Soft Talk para ti, México! ¡Aquí viene el Big Stick!” fashion.
Islamic terrorism never posed that degree of threat. It was a serious threat that had to be dealt with forthwith, to be sure. But not an existential one, not least because even our two main geopolitical adversaries (China and Russia), along with just about everybody else (including Iran) were onboard with the task of extinguishing it. For perspective: at its peak in 2014, the land area that ISIS managed to get to control in Iraq and Syria was about the size of … South Korea. Within a handful years, that shriveled down to about the size of … Rhode Island.
I do, however, fully agree with you on the following:
“No matter how this ends, twenty years from now, Russians will still be hated in Ukraine.”
So, Russia can’t exist without THAT warm water port?
What about countries that don’t have – have maybe NEVER had, because they’re land-locked! – a warm-water port? Are they now to be allowed to invade their neighbors in order to obtain one? And we must let it happen?
It’s also worth noting again, for the umpteen-thousandth time perhaps, that RUSSIA AGREED TO THOSE BORDERS.
The “IOW, an existential threat.” sentence in my post didn’t just refer to the sentence that immediately preceded it (i.e. “Furthermore, Russia would lose its main warm water naval base in Crimea (Sevastopol).”. It also referred to the previous sentence (i.e. “The threat that Putin is responding to in Ukraine is that of sharing 1,200 miles of border with a country that its principal geopolitical adversary (the US) has been gaining increasing control over and (let’s not fool ourselves) intends to absorb into its “defensive” military alliance (NATO) at the earliest opportunity.” as well.
Now that you know that, would you like to revise your reply in any way?
Additional question:
How do you think the US would act in response to the scenario I presented (i.e. “a scenario involving China and Mexico (with which we share about 1,900 miles of border) embarking on plans to enter into a “defensive” military alliance (involving joint military training/exercises, a Chinese-controlled naval/air base or two on the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts, etc.)”?
A. Meh. Whatevs. It’s not an existential threat.
B. What???!!!??? No [redacted] way we’re gonna let that happen!
C. What if we had previously agreed to such, as Russia agreed to the borders of Ukraine?
Classic avoidance: Rather than answering a question, pose your own.
Would it surprise you to know that I’m not at all surprised by your reply?
Hey, not my fault if you only want someone to choose from options you select for your own reasons.
I don’t believe this.
It costs about $7B to build a full sea port. There is a Russian city called Anapa that is east of Crimea with flat terrain for building rail. It would make a better located naval port than Sevastopol. Building a port that is more easily defended is cheaper than fighting for a land bridge to Crimea. Not that Russia needs much of a navy, they are an Asian power. They should focus on land transportation (rail, roads, pipelines) with China. Also, any navy on the Black Sea is trapped by Instanbul, so military impact is nearly zero.
I think this is about nostalgia for Crimea.