This being so, why does it matter whether you are camp West or camp Eurasia? Cheering for a team is a natural human reaction, but why not evaluate the whole of global politics through an ecological lens? — apokrisis

You can't because from a purely ecological lens the extinction of humans is a boon. And in that case the sooner we are all gone the better.

Thus if we wish to live, our negotiating thru the various political, cultural, economic and environmental issues becomes unavoidable.

But factually, both sides make the same comparisons. So the criticism applies equally. The habit is shared. — apokrisis

This is sadly all too true and hopelessly dysfunctional. Emotive partisanship is by definition myopic and prone to confirmation bias. It narrows the field of cognition and clouds the exploration of possibilities. The level of technological power - we possess today - means the consequences of our errors no longer permit us to indulge our primordial and medieval instincts.

For much of political history, it has been wise policy to keep the public's stomach full but its head empty - the problems that come with modern complexity and advanced technological capability make this ancient instinct not only insufficient at overcoming systemic challenges but almost certain to lead to an existential catastrophe.

Overall advances & retreats Feb 24 - Oct 2 (not in detail)

... only Crimea and Donbas were significant to Russian security concerns right? — neomac

Those are not the words I would use, but it's clear that southern Ukraine has been Russia's primary concern since 2013, and probably will be for a long time to come.

Learn what prior to means. And then correct your own biases. — ssu

I've no idea what you're talking about. All my sources are prior to the war.

If by 'the war' you mean the whole unrest from 2014, then...

a) some of the reports go back to 2012, so that's wrong just on its face
b) even the people whose job it is to work out these things are unsure whether to call pre-2022 conditions a 'war' so to claim that your meaning was so obvious is ridiculous.
c) Why go back then. If your claim is that Ukraine would treat the inhabitants better because they did so over a decade ago then I think we can all see you're clutching at straws.

You had a biased view of Ukraine because of your immersion in Western propaganda, I pointed that out. That's all that's happened here.



It's like you're immune to data. I've posted three reports from the world's leading authorities on Human Rights detailing the way in which the Ukrainian authorities committed exactly the same sorts of abuses and you're still posting this crap as if the problem were one-sided.

It’s hard to follow the logic of your reasoning. First you start with “let us say you wanted to preserve Western preeminence” as if the sake of your argument is to see how to achieve that goal more effectively than simply by supplying weapons to Ukraine, but then you conclude with “making peace with the Russians” for Europeans (to grant economic prosperity independently from the US?) and “realise its ecocidal corrupt mania” for America (namely, giving up on their hegemonic role?), neither of which ensures Western preeminence. — neomac

I think you follow the logic pretty well.

To make a long story short, "peace" is the basis of US power: you play by America's rules and you can go about your business in peace, maybe a lot of poverty, but at least peacefully. The war in Ukraine upsets this essentially "protection money" system.

European prosperity is part of this global economic system the US manages: if you play by the US's rules then you can play with Europe too. If you destroy European prosperity, the US economy is not large enough and not globally integrated enough to remotely absorb economic activity that is left hanging: they will go to China.

The EU is a massive part of the global economy and geologically positioned as essentially a cross-roads of all major parts: North America, Asia, Middle-East and Africa.

Without Europe, America is far away from everything and does not have the economic pull required to maintain preeminence, and would just become less and less relevant with things happening that the US can't do anything about.

It's when you add America and Europe together, in addition to the satellite "Western" countries in the East (mainly Japan, South Korea and Australia), that you have the economic pull to bring nations into the system by their own accord.

If you bitch slap Europe hard enough, people go elsewhere.

Sure, bitch slapping Europe feels good and is one way to express the power you have right now. But it's also the indication of deeper mental problems.

However, since I had time this morning, I also wrote a long version:

I am challenging the hypothesis that supplying arms to Ukraine is good for "the West", both Europe and even the United States; that supporting the current war is in fact counter productive to Western preeminence.

It certainly benefits short term profits and capital gains of fossil fuel and arms donors to the US administration, but I am not defining "the West" as synonymous with such an interest, and that the Ukraine war is also counter productive to US power (which there was debate about at the start of the war even in US neocon circles, that a complete schism with Russia and placing it permanently as commodity supplier to the Chinese was actually bad for the US; for there were "Imperial analysts", whatever you want to call them, that were in favour of a diplomatic solution simply on the grounds it is better for US power to maintain the status quo, that Ukraine is far away and unimportant and not worth the geopolitical headache, was essentially their view; there's lot's of specific reasons for such a conclusion, but it can be summarised as simply instability generally favours upstart movers and shakers, rather than the incumbent).

Western preeminence is not primarily based on military strength. The United States does not conquer and then integrate administratively the conquered regions into their imperial system, such as most past empires: the British and other European empires, Roman, Persian, Mongolian, Inca, etc.

For example, West Germany and Japan are not the 51st and 52nd states of the USA even after surrendering and the US being essentially in full administrative control for a time, as that is simply incompatible with US governance and culture; however, united Germany and Japan today are certainly part of the "US system", but it would an exaggeration to call them vassal states. US control over it's "allies" is not total and if, say, Japan did something the US didn't like (for example not join all the sanctions against Russia), there is essentially no option for the USA to just re-conquer Japan and administer its economic policies to its liking (even if it had the power to do so).

In other words, the situation is complicated. United States position in the world certainly does have a military component, but could not be maintained with that military power; if states generally speaking start moving away from US preferred policies and towards, say, Chinese preferred policies, there is little the US can do about it militarily. Indeed, not only can the US not implement its will on the world by force, but trying to do so is corrosive to US power.

The actual basis of US power is being a "fair and honest broker" (obviously not actually honest or fair, but fair enough) for access to the global economic system and "protection". The US system is stable if the price it extracts for this "service" is in some way justifiable for most states most of the time.

It is a classic mafioso type relationship at its heart: pay me ... let's call it a "tax" ... as the big boss of bosses, and you won't have to deal with the local street thugs that could mess with you: capiche.

The Ukraine proxy war is in fundamental contradiction to this way of "doing business".

For, before this war (started in 2014), Russia was not really "breaking any rules", but playing by the rules to access the Western economic system. The US support of Ukraine is essentially the big mafia boss suddenly deciding to support their nephews criminal career and letting them do whatever crime they want in the neighbourhood; as the big shop keeper on the street who's been paying protection money and playing by the rules imposed on them, this wasn't the deal. The deal is: play by the rules and I won't have to deal with local thugs messing with my shit.

Had the US, post 2014, come in and brokered (and enforced) a peace deal, the system would have been restored to balance. Russia loses its influence in Kiev, but gets Crimea and at least part of Donbas, symbolic recognition of Russian language in Ukraine. This would have been the US playing its role as "global don" competently: there's some local issue somewhere, better to sort it out than it potentially explode into some big mess to deal with: you will accept this piece of the pie, and you will accept this other piece of the pie.

However, there's an internal contradiction with this "peace brokering" basis of US power, which is the American military industrial complex does not want peace, but neither can it conquer the world so it's utility to US power is very much secondary to these more complicated economic and diplomatic considerations. The "diplomatic" industry, however, doesn't produce profits. The solution to the contradiction since WWII was, first, the cold war and to "top off" the profits, second, to simply wage continuous war on small countries that are not integral to the global economic system.

WIth the end of the cold war, the war on smaller powers way of making money became the only game in town, so the war on terror is invented. 20 years of profits without it really mattering all that much to the system as a whole.

It is simply not a coincidence that the months after the war on terror officially came to an end, simply exhausted it's profit making potential and there was just no one else to bomb, that this new "cold war" erupted.

But it is not a new cold war, rather this war in Ukraine is simply based on the fabrication of Russia as an enemy since it was realised the blessed war on terror will inevitably end. Essentially as soon as the writing was on the wall, Putin became the new boogey man, butt of jokes and constantly calling him a tyrant and so on. But why Russia? There's plenty of mid-level regional powers that have far worse democratic credentials. It's just lazy writing basically to concoct an enemy to focus on as soon as the war on terror no longer brings in truck loads of cash. First phase was stoking nuclear tensions, ending various treaties, new weapons programs (because they are profitable), moving missiles closer to Russia.

Long story short, a very profitable endeavour transitioning Russia the new "other" after muslims were squeezed dry.

The problem is that war profiteering, while corrosive to US power, is only compatible with it if it's against small and already fairly isolated countries that are not integral to the world economy. Russia was and is completely integral to the world economy.

The situation is more akin to a mafia don making life difficult for a casino operator in Vegas, not really for any particular reason but just emotional outburst and "because I can", fuelled by hubris, arrogance and cocaine. A mafioso can get angry with any random small pizza shop and have the pizza shop owner dragged out to the alley and killed, no reason and no one cares about it (just a mafioso doing his angry killing thing), but more powerful "businessmen" have options to defend themselves. Mess with a casino owner, even with more capacity for violence right now, and they start to think of what they can do about it. Show enough "lack of respect" and maybe he goes and starts talking to other casino owners, that what's happened to him can happen to them, and, together, if they stop paying the protection money then and stop the drug and prostitute sales in their hotels, there's nothing really the head honcho, for now, can do about it (especially if there's another organisation competing on the global scene that is more "reasonable" to deal with).

That's basically the situation, US may not "like" the Russians, but they were a good actor in America's global economic system: fuelling the NATO war machine by providing commodities and energy that could have added value transformations in Europe, that is far more profitable than the raw materials.

In other words, the US "broke the deal" to provide stability in exchange for doing business in their system: using their "laundry services" for example.

The reason is simply the arms and fossil industry profits are so massive that such interest can overwhelm the entire analytical capacity of the US intelligence community (you only get "nuance" in US strategic thinking when arms and oil interests are in some sort of competition, but if they coincide there is no other possible policy).

So, even focusing on the United States, the war in Ukraine is not beneficial to Western preeminence; however, it's unlikely the US administration could do anything to endanger a single dollar of arms and fossil profits, regardless of what US politicians think (that doesn't really matter much).

However, Europe has far more to lose from this war and also far more leverage, so they could follow their own interest and essentially force a peace. This would also be good for American Imperialism, and "Western preeminence" as understood essentially to mean US and Europe.

The problem is that, as Blinken just recently "said the quiet part out loud", blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline is a "big opportunity" ... for who? Well, for the US administration as defined as simply the sales reps of the US fossil and arms industries. There is no analytical depth further than that, and Americans would throw a hissy fit if Europe tried to lower their energy costs and a myriad of domestic political issues (and thus US fossil industry profits) through pursuing any sort of peace. American diplomats would be literally writhing on the floor screeching and screaming. However, it would be for their own good.

American cognitive abilities to manage their empire have essentially collapsed, so Europe would need to dust off the ol' Imperial boots to co-manage the Western system.

Of course, this is assuming Western preeminence is worth preserving. On this question, Europe has been leading the world in ecological policy (what gives rise to tensions with US administrative donors and therefore US administration wanting to punish Europe to express that frustration). So again, if Europe took co-management of the Western economic system and pushed it in a more ecological direction, then I think that would be overall a good thing.

If they wouldn't do that anyways, then maybe the theory that only authoritarian states can respond to existential crisis with "what needs to be done" is correct and perhaps all the authoritarians getting together in a club is better odds. I wouldn't want that to be true, letting the ecological crisis unfold over 60 years while knowing about it, the war on drugs, the war on terror, financial collapse, covid policies and then this entirely (and easily) prevented war in Ukraine, aren't exactly good advertisements for Western global management.

There's also the question of how democratic is the West really ... really as much as we like to believe? Debatable.

Is the Western World really still a force for good? — yebiga

Still? Which good old day are you nostalgic for? Mussolini made the trains run on time, and The British Empire made the trains, and published Marx.

(you only get "nuance" in US strategic thinking when arms and oil interests are in some sort of competition, but if they coincide there is no other possible policy). — boethius

Well that has the bitter taste of truth. The land of the free far too costly.

I really enjoy your analysis.

Our Western political leaders are in the habit of elevating one foreign leader after another as the latest reincarnation of Hitler. In just the last 2 decades we've had five of these Doctor Evil types: Saddam, Gaddafi, Kim Jong-un, Trump and now Putin. Popular Western Culture can accept criticism of its imperial colonial past but is not so comfortable discussing and arguably blind to its current geo-political excesses. — yebiga

Bringing up the repetitive nature of these little sagas: always a new Hitler, always some sort of existential threat (if not physically some vague "way of life"), and violence always being the answer (and to question the use of violence ... is somehow actually pro-violence), spot on.

However, I would disagree on one point:

You can't because from a purely ecological lens the extinction of humans is a boon. And in that case the sooner we are all gone the better. — yebiga

As some sort of proposed definition, humans are one species among many so, as such, simply adding to biodiversity.

However, in practical terms of today, any plausible scenario where we actually go extinct is one where we bring the vast majority of the biosphere with us. "Everyone kill themselves" is not a practical political project: so how that would happen is nuclear war, extreme climate chaos, life competing AI (likely all three at once).

Most importantly, sustainability as an engineering project is fairly easy to do while helping increase global biodiversity (planting trees) and cleaning up our waste. We are not in some dilemma that solving our problems are simply impossible from a physical perspective, and we need to therefore accept unpleasant conclusions (such as it would in fact be better if we all kill ourselves).

Our problems are political, and history demonstrates political systems can change rapidly.

Is the Western World really still a force for good?
— yebiga

Still? Which good old day are you nostalgic for? Mussolini made the trains run on time, and The British Empire made the trains, and published Marx. — unenlightened

Let's delete "for good", which is indeed quite debatable. The remaining part of the question is in the balance: Is the Western World still a force?

OK let’s do a step forward and ask: where do you think human rights are better supported: in Western countries (e.g. the US, the UK, Germany, France) or in the countries hostile to the West (Russia, China, North Corea, Iran)?
I think Western countries have institutions that support human rights within their territory — neomac

Yep. What's that got to do with the humanitarian problems in Ukraine. Neither Ukraine nor Russia are 'Western'.

If you set challenges to others — neomac

I haven't.

It’s irrelevant what you think States ought to be — neomac

No it isn't. I'm a member of the electorate in one of them, I hold them to account. It matters tremendously what I think they out to be concerned with.

depending on the context there are political elites one can trust more or less for being up to the task. — neomac

Exactly. And the argument is thst there's little to chose between Ukraine and Russia on that score. As such there's no humanitarian goal in ensuring the territory remain in Ukrainian control. The humanitarian goal is to stop the fighting as quickly as possible.

Let's delete "for good", which is indeed quite debatable. The remaining part of the question is in the balance: Is the Western World still a force? — Olivier5

Nice

Yep. It should be no contest. But then Russian incompetence, as all the credible analysis says… — apokrisis

That you honestly believe ex-US officers, in this case not even a ex-general!, working for "think tanks" is for sure not feeding you bullshit and represent an agenda, is worrisome.

Joel Rayburn, a retired Army colonel and former U.S. special envoy for Syria, who is now a fellow at New America, a think tank in Washington, D.C. — Is the Russian military a paper tiger, New Yorker

You really want to compare this guy to Michael Kofman.

Who, if you watch the interview I posted, mentions there was a lot of capabilities said to be missing, that the Russians did use successfully at the start of the war, but it was not reported at the time.

Of course, some operations were successful and some not successful, as you'd expect in any major war.

But on the subject of experts, he's another interesting interview:



But I'm going to guess not as "credible" in your book because he disagrees with some of your points?

Still? Which good old day are you nostalgic for? Mussolini made the trains run on time, and The British Empire made the trains, and published Marx. — unenlightened

Whilst, I am cynical and hyper-critical of the current Western hegemonic culture - and would argue that we have collectively lost our minds - and that there never was never any benevolent golden age; Nevertheless, amongst the grotesque litany of excess, genocide and hubris - western culture has also led a remarkable rational awakening of science and ethics which has empowered quite miraculous achievements lifting humankind out of universal misery, disease, hunger, war and superstition.

The price paid for these achievements has been bloody and ruthless but what is now possible for billions of people today - is the stuff of magical thinking and fantasy for all preceding human history.
We throw the baby out with the bath water - so to speak - when we diminish these truly astonishing achievements.

Our errors and misdeeds are not the whole story. Not in the past nor today. It may be wise and useful to study and remind ourself of our errors so as to not repeat them. It is at least as equally wise and useful to study and remind ourself of our achievements - so as to propagate more of them.

It seems to me that much of our contemporary cultural and political melee comes from an myopic emotive emphasis concerning our past mistakes which has left our culture petty, whining, bitter, resentful, shameful, bereft of pride and most importantly - incapable of agency.





I

We throw the baby out with the bath water - so to speak - when we diminish these truly astonishing achievements. — yebiga

Why?

It seems to me that much of our contemporary cultural and political melee comes from an myopic emotive emphasis concerning our past mistakes which has left our culture petty, whining, bitter, resentful, shameful, bereft of pride and most importantly - incapable of agency. — yebiga

It seems to me that this myopic emotive view comes about as a result of the myopic, emotive, jingoistic celebration of the wonders of science, christianity, and whatever political system is flavour of the month, while ignoring the cost in terms of war, famine, and pestilence visited on every inhabited continent, not to mention the destruction of the ecosystem, and the creation of climate change. The astonishing achievements of producing global threats to not only our species but also many many others by man-made apocalypses are not anything to be proud of; if only humanity was a little less capable of agency.

Why? — Isaac

There are and always will be existential threats - they exist with or without us.
Their existence is unavoidable as is our necessity to negotiate thru them.

So, what precisely is stopping us from managing the eco-system better, in preventing the degradation of land, in moving towards a more sustainable future? In the western world green leaning policies and green leaning parties have been in the ascendancy for over a decade or two. A series of global announcements with big promises over this period have been celebrated as near religious events.

The myriad of little things that could have been done yesterday, that could be done today are never done or just poorly done. It seems that unless saving the planet involves a large uber-expensive and serpentine administrative process its not worth the effort. The idea that any individual, any business or any local, regional, state or federal government could by itself initiate something ecologically worthwhile that did not fall under the auspices of some strategy administered by a global bureaucracy is unthinkable.

When exactly did multi-governments committees, let alone trans-governmental committees prove themselves to be efficient and effective at dodging complex existential threats? But here we are.

Saving the planet is a grave matter that can only be conducted by the most serious and important global professionals, who can articulate the correct creed, the consensus of principles, using the appropriate language, defined by the sanctioned legal articles, the internationally certified methodologies, the standardised measures, inspired by a select focus group talking points, the hot button advertising campaigns that elevate the role models that will bravely lead us to our Uber-future.

But before anything can be done - anyone who disagrees with the sanctioned global agenda is cancelled. Once the heretics are silenced - the work will commence - Promise!

This is all of course a vulgar exaggeration and its author should be immediately dismissed as denier of climate change, most likely a Trump and or Putin supporter and very probably racist, misogynist, homo and trans-phobic.

Now that's a debate.

But before anything can be done - anyone who disagrees with the sanctioned global agenda is cancelled. Once the heretics are silenced - the work will commence - Promise!

This is all of course a vulgar exaggeration and its author should be immediately dismissed as denier of climate change, most likely a Trump and or Putin supporter and very probably racist, misogynist, homo and trans-phobic. — yebiga

Are you implying fossil fuel lobbies are just wise ol' heretics suffering the gravest of political persecutions for their views?

I fail to follow where you're going with this passage.

Now that's a debate. — yebiga

Is it?

Primary casualties/losses include:

• Ukrainian non/combatants
• Ukrainian freedom due to invasion
• Ukrainian infrastructure, land/homes
• in occupied areas, Ukrainian culture self-determination freedom
• Russian combatants/invaders
• trust in Putin and team (or Russians in general especially by Ukrainians)
• some measure of international stability
• incentives to rely on or trade with Russia

:/
Solutions seem elusive.
Least common denominator as it were?

Neither Ukraine nor Russia are ‘Western'. — Isaac

The difference however is that Ukraine is more pro-Western than Russia. So as long as Ukrainian are open to enter the Western sphere of influence cooperatively, I would welcome it.

I haven’t. — Isaac

Your prescription was “As compassionate outsiders, our concern should solely be for the well-being of the people there”. How likely is that a random individual or collectivity or State in the West can be so compassionate to be concerned solely for the well-being of the people there? I see it as pretty much unlikely at any level. That is why your prescription looks damn challenging to be euphemistic.

No it isn't. I'm a member of the electorate in one of them, I hold them to account. It matters tremendously what I think they out to be concerned with. — Isaac

I wasn’t questioning the relevance of your moral standards to you nor the relevance of your political choices in a democracy. Again, I am questioning its relevance to establish what individuals, collectives or States are capable of. A part from that, people can surely have all the unrealistic expectations and set their moral standards arbitrarily high as they like, of course.

And the argument is thst there's little to chose between Ukraine and Russia on that score — Isaac

Little? The difference is dramatically under our eyes: Ukraine is more pro-Western than Russia. And risking their lives because they want to enter the Western sphere of influence isn’t a little difference to my standards. On the contrary I find it the opposite of compassionate just to call it “little”.

Russia has gone so much backwards.

Arctic soldiers relocated to the Kherson farms:

Russia’s Reindeer Brigade Is Fighting For Its Survival In Southern Ukraine (Forbes; Oct 7, 2022)
(alternatively via msn) — jorndoe

Now there are fewer troops behind the Finnish border than anytime. The garrisons have only a skeleton crew and new conscripts in training.

Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia kill at least 12, Ukrainian officials say (Oct 9, 2022)

That kid there was/is scheduled to speak Russian only, by the way:



Not the first missile attack in the past week or so.
(Isn't this supposed to be a region that voted to join Russia anyway?)
Not seeing much genuinity or reconciliation here.

Whatever the overall intention of the operation, this report presents a sharp contrast to the U.S. doctrine on Joint Forcible Entry Operations.

The emphasis on keeping the element of surprise was blown via U.S. Intelligence.
Isolation of the 'lodgment' from enemy forces was not achieved.
Being told what was happening on the way to battle is a far cry from the 'rehearsals' called for in complex force integration.
The collection of tactical failures suggests that not much 'red team' process went into the planning.

That you honestly believe ex-US officers, in this case not even a ex-general!, working for "think tanks" is for sure not feeding you bullshit and represent an agenda, is worrisome. — boethius

Ukraine is recovering it's territory, not losing more. It's fighting a conventional war against Russia and not fighting a hit-and-run insurgency. Oryx that counts the destroyed/damaged/captured tanks can come up to numbers of 1300 tanks lost simply tells a lot. It speaks of a military failure that you cannot just deny.

But you think it's all bullshit.

Well, even the Russians admit it and there's quite a lot of Russian observers noting how bad the war is going.

But somehow your counterargument is that it's just all propaganda.

maybe the theory that only authoritarian states can respond to existential crisis with "what needs to be done" is correct and perhaps all the authoritarians getting together in a club is better odds. — boethius

By “only authoritarian states can respond to existential crisis with "what needs to be done””, you mean by directly engaging in aggressive wars and territorial annexations as old empires did? Or by extorting smaller countries by force, because that's what they do?
By “all the authoritarians getting together in a club is better odds” you mean that a club of authoritarian regimes like China, Russia and Iran are better odds for peace and prosperity in Europe than the US hegemony?

the destroyed/damaged/captured tanks — ssu

There have been other reports.

Haven't read of any booby traps. Maybe the Russians will add that to their arsenal, however wasteful it seems. :)

The emphasis on keeping the element of surprise was blown via U.S. Intelligence. — Paine

Tell that to all those Russian soldiers who found out that they were invading Ukraine only when they started seeing Ukrainian road signs from their APCs!

Yes. I wonder how they would have reacted if told beforehand.

You really want to compare this guy to Michael Kofman.

Who, if you watch the interview I posted, mentions there was a lot of capabilities said to be missing, that the Russians did use successfully at the start of the war, but it was not reported at the time. — boethius

Thanks for posting that Kofman interview which flatly contradicts your talking points. That you could hear it as saying the opposite makes me quite worried about your comprehension skills.

The capabilities you are talking about are electronic warfare and cyber warfare to disrupt Ukrainian command and control. By their nature, that isn't visible. And so certainly we may find they were used. It would be surprising if they weren't. But the lack of visible effect then simply becomes another reason to suspect Russian incompetence.

So you tried to make a talking point of a passing mention that EW and cyber must of course have been employed as if this was being used as a major critique of Russian military effectiveness. But in an hour interview, Kofman nicely sums up the story of just how much went wrong for the Russians after the paratroop drop to establish a Kyiv airbridge.

In a nutshell, Putin's political incompetence – some rush of blood to the head – led to Russian generals becoming committed to a lightning expeditionary force attack that they could never appropriately scale. Decision incompetence exposed a structural lack of competence.

Kofman knocks down the talking point that the assault on Kyiv was a feint rather than a serious attempt to decapitate the Ukraine government and install a puppet regime. He points out how even after this first quick strike failed, Russia still persisted in dividing its underpowered "special operation" force, giving it the three objectives of encircling Kyiv, encircling Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, and pushing right down the coast to take Odessa.

It failed on all three objectives and wound up in the current war of attrition, with Ukraine now with all the momentum.

Kofman says this was clearly political incompetence – Putin expecting the Russian military to achieve things it wasn't equipped for. But then also he points out just how further widespread military incompetence compounded the Russian problems.

He is scathing of the sloppy navy that was supposed to be leading an amphibious assault on Odessa but instead couldn't even hold Snake Island or protect its main ship.

He is scathing of the airforce – although he says what can you expect from a force that is still stuck in the 1990s when it comes to complex operations and SEAD.

He is scathing of the army which became exposed in its incapacity to scale its operational structures with any efficiency. Even the good parts of the army were stuck in a disjointed and piecemeal mode of operation.

He points out how Russian incompetence shows through in very general ways. They knew Himars was coming but did nothing to adjust. He gives multiple examples of Russia being slow to learn where the Ukrainians have been nimble.

He ends sounding personally aggrieved about a particular case of the Russians trying to knock out a bridge with cruise missiles in a way that wouldn't even be believed in any basic officer training.

So yes Kofman's analysis is well worth listening to. But it is hard to believe you yourself sat all the way through it.

I fail to follow where you're going with this passage. — boethius

I was trying to illustrate what a hopelessly riddled mess of invective this heated partisanship has led us to.

A person can be concerned about the environment without having any confidence in the proposed solutions being offered and can legitimately suspect the motives and sincerity of its proponents. A person can hate US/NATO foreign policy without being a fan of Russia or Putin. A person can prefer Trump over Biden or Hillary without being enthusiastic about any of them. A person can respect all races, homosexuality and trans people whilst being suspicious or even opposed to the various related policy campaigns. Just as a person can be impressed with Heiddegger's Being and Time without being a NAZI sympathiser.

A person can acknowledge historical crimes and errors of the culture they belong to whilst still being proud of its achievements.

This understanding is actually an essential pre-condition for rational discussion. No matter how erudite the interjection that breaches this pre-condition it renders rational discourse impossible. If discourse and public debate is to be productive it must avoid descending into a contest - until proven otherwise - we should assume the very best of our interlocutor.

If discourse and public debate is to be productive it must avoid descending into a contest - until proven otherwise - we should assume the very best of our interlocutor. — yebiga

What constitutes the condition of "until proven otherwise"?

For example, for one who does not see any gap between Heidegger's philosophy and his political declarations, why is it incumbent upon me to separate the two? He does not do that anywhere that I am aware of. If the burden of proof does not fall upon him, what else is left?

That was just an example. The first question about proof is what confronts all in regard to the situation in Ukraine.