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> (Paradoxically, Russia’s woes at the hands of Ukraine might be bad news for democracy, because they suggest that this trend has strengthened: so far, Russia’s

by juve1996 4y ago

> (Paradoxically, Russia’s woes at the hands of Ukraine might be bad news for democracy, because they suggest that this trend has strengthened: so far, Russia’s advantage in numbers has been offset by Ukraine’s more advanced doctrine and NATO’s better kit.) In the long run, maybe the material basis for representative democracy has fallen away. I find this claim to not make much sense. A technological power + more people would be stronger than just a technological power.

nine_k 4y ago
Technological advantage + barely enough people overpowered lack of relevant technology + lots of people many times in history. Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru are two best-known examples.
- juve1996 4y ago
  I'm not arguing that. Technology can make smaller forces stronger. But it can also make larger forces stronger. Technology + people loses to the same technology + more people. If Ukraine had more people, the war would be going much more favorably, for example.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Roughly, if you have much more people than guns, these people, however brave, don't have any more guns to man, and making them fight with spears is pointless. A technology makes more people stronger only if it can be scaled; Ukraine in particular is strained more by things like the number of 155 mm shells, HIMARS rockets, advanced tanks than by the number of willing infantrymen, as far as I can tell from reporting. A small group with an advanced coercion tech subduing a larger group that lack it is just a very common scenario, sadly. Modern technology though becomes more and more affordable and scalable, potentially empowering the oppressed: say, off-the-shelf "big toy" drones made some difference in the Ukraine war.
    - juve1996 4y ago
      > Roughly, if you have much more people than guns, these people, however brave, don't have any more guns to man, and making them fight with spears is pointless. Russia has thrown tons of ill-equipped troops at a more technologically advanced Ukraine. Clearly, it isn't pointess. Infantrymen storm machine gun positions quite often. Technologically they're at a disadvantage. But the hill still needs taken. That isnt' "pointless." > A small group with an advanced coercion tech subduing a larger group that lack it is just a very common scenario, sadly. Modern technology though becomes more and more affordable and scalable, potentially empowering the oppressed: say, off-the-shelf "big toy" drones made some difference in the Ukraine war. As that technology becomes more scalable and affordable, large nations are able to adopt it at a larger scale. The higher your population, the more potential users of that technology. Again, the point is clear: technology + small population, in general, loses to technology + large population. The point the article made is flawed. You still need manpower. Look at Iraq, Afghanistan. Billions in tech. Failures.
    - throw0101c 4y ago
      > Roughly, if you have much more people than guns, these people, however brave, don't have any more guns to man, and making them fight with spears is pointless. Russia's experience in WW2 is a counter-example: have a line of 5+ guys, the first guy gets the gun, and the entire group charge forward. When the front man is inevitably shot the second guy picks up the gun and the group continues forward. Having more men allows one to wage a war of attrition. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attrition_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attrition_warfare Works best when one doesn't care about casualty numbers.
  - Slava_Propanei 4y ago
    [dead]
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    The "+" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your argument. It is not trivial to transfer technology, especially on a large scale and in warfare conditions. The Russians probably have all the necessary know-how to create something like HIMARS. But they cannot design and manufacture such a weapon quickly enough, much less deploy it. The same probably applied to the Nazis and the atomic bomb. Their physics was up to par, but their entire industrial complex wasn't.
    - juve1996 4y ago
      > It is not trivial to transfer technology, especially on a large scale and in warfare conditions. Sure it is. There are countless examples of this throughout history. We're doing this transfer of technology RIGHT NOW en masse to Ukraine. > The Russians probably have all the necessary know-how to create something like HIMARS. But they cannot design and manufacture such a weapon quickly enough, much less deploy it. Not sure how this is relevant at all. Logistics is a different problem. In any case, the russians still control massive regions of Ukraine. While their overextension is a failure, the war is a long way from over, and Russia has always historically been able to grind opponents down. > The same probably applied to the Nazis and the atomic bomb. Their physics was up to par, but their entire industrial complex wasn't. Of course - late in the war their cities were being firebombed, factories under constant bombing raids. This isn't a technological problem. The US was able to build without any threat whatsoever, thus, irrelevant to our debate here.
    - ianburrell 4y ago
      Russia has a lot MLRS artillery in Ukraine and are using it heavily. Ukraine has MLRS too but used most of their stocks and slowly building locally. The difference isn’t HIMARS but the guided rockets, GMLRS and GLSDB, that US has been giving Ukraine. This changes HIMARS from something that can destroy an area to something that hit small targets. It means that can use $100k rocket instead of air attack to destroy supply dumps, command posts, and bridges.
pelasaco 4y ago
yes, specially because NATO outnumbers Russia. So you have a giant supporting Ukraine, which isn't exactly a small country.
- squarefoot 4y ago
  This assuming that NATO won't turn their back to Ukraine one day. Russia is forced to continue this war to a favorable point, because any withdrawal that is not accompanied by a significant territorial acquisition that can be trumpeted by internal and external propaganda would result in Putin's political demise and possibly his death too. Russia's tactics of weakening Ukrainian people support for their government through civilian objectives bombings and war crimes might unfortunately work if NATO doesn't hurry and give Ukraine the weapons and assistance they need ASAP instead of wasting time bouncing responsibilities. There's people dying over there each day, and I find revolting that seeing that it takes them months to even decide to send tanks or not.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    By now, NATO is so deep in that if it abandons the battlefield, American and British credibility will be annihilated. No one would trust an ally which sticks with you for a year in the most massive European land war since 1945, only to go away later and leave you hanging.
    - squarefoot 4y ago
      I hope so much you're right.
  - jonstewart 4y ago
    Russia isn’t forced to pursue the war. They could withdraw and that would be a good thing.
    - squarefoot 4y ago
      Yes, but today Russia does what Putin says, unless they overthrow him. If we accept the fact that Putin is a dictator, then, like every other dictator, he could have only two choices: winning or dying.
dash2 4y ago
The argument is not about which side is stronger. Instead, the argument is that democratic institutions are ultimately supported because states need citizen armies to fight, and that may not be true any more. See the Ticchi and Vindigni paper that I link to for evidence on that score.

nine_k 4y ago

Technological advantage + barely enough people overpowered lack of relevant technology + lots of people many times in history. Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru are two best-known examples.

juve1996 4y ago
I'm not arguing that. Technology can make smaller forces stronger. But it can also make larger forces stronger. Technology + people loses to the same technology + more people. If Ukraine had more people, the war would be going much more favorably, for example.
- nine_k 4y ago
  Roughly, if you have much more people than guns, these people, however brave, don't have any more guns to man, and making them fight with spears is pointless. A technology makes more people stronger only if it can be scaled; Ukraine in particular is strained more by things like the number of 155 mm shells, HIMARS rockets, advanced tanks than by the number of willing infantrymen, as far as I can tell from reporting. A small group with an advanced coercion tech subduing a larger group that lack it is just a very common scenario, sadly. Modern technology though becomes more and more affordable and scalable, potentially empowering the oppressed: say, off-the-shelf "big toy" drones made some difference in the Ukraine war.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    > Roughly, if you have much more people than guns, these people, however brave, don't have any more guns to man, and making them fight with spears is pointless. Russia has thrown tons of ill-equipped troops at a more technologically advanced Ukraine. Clearly, it isn't pointess. Infantrymen storm machine gun positions quite often. Technologically they're at a disadvantage. But the hill still needs taken. That isnt' "pointless." > A small group with an advanced coercion tech subduing a larger group that lack it is just a very common scenario, sadly. Modern technology though becomes more and more affordable and scalable, potentially empowering the oppressed: say, off-the-shelf "big toy" drones made some difference in the Ukraine war. As that technology becomes more scalable and affordable, large nations are able to adopt it at a larger scale. The higher your population, the more potential users of that technology. Again, the point is clear: technology + small population, in general, loses to technology + large population. The point the article made is flawed. You still need manpower. Look at Iraq, Afghanistan. Billions in tech. Failures.
  - throw0101c 4y ago
    > Roughly, if you have much more people than guns, these people, however brave, don't have any more guns to man, and making them fight with spears is pointless. Russia's experience in WW2 is a counter-example: have a line of 5+ guys, the first guy gets the gun, and the entire group charge forward. When the front man is inevitably shot the second guy picks up the gun and the group continues forward. Having more men allows one to wage a war of attrition. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attrition_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attrition_warfare Works best when one doesn't care about casualty numbers.
- Slava_Propanei 4y ago
  [dead]
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  The "+" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your argument. It is not trivial to transfer technology, especially on a large scale and in warfare conditions. The Russians probably have all the necessary know-how to create something like HIMARS. But they cannot design and manufacture such a weapon quickly enough, much less deploy it. The same probably applied to the Nazis and the atomic bomb. Their physics was up to par, but their entire industrial complex wasn't.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    > It is not trivial to transfer technology, especially on a large scale and in warfare conditions. Sure it is. There are countless examples of this throughout history. We're doing this transfer of technology RIGHT NOW en masse to Ukraine. > The Russians probably have all the necessary know-how to create something like HIMARS. But they cannot design and manufacture such a weapon quickly enough, much less deploy it. Not sure how this is relevant at all. Logistics is a different problem. In any case, the russians still control massive regions of Ukraine. While their overextension is a failure, the war is a long way from over, and Russia has always historically been able to grind opponents down. > The same probably applied to the Nazis and the atomic bomb. Their physics was up to par, but their entire industrial complex wasn't. Of course - late in the war their cities were being firebombed, factories under constant bombing raids. This isn't a technological problem. The US was able to build without any threat whatsoever, thus, irrelevant to our debate here.
  - ianburrell 4y ago
    Russia has a lot MLRS artillery in Ukraine and are using it heavily. Ukraine has MLRS too but used most of their stocks and slowly building locally. The difference isn’t HIMARS but the guided rockets, GMLRS and GLSDB, that US has been giving Ukraine. This changes HIMARS from something that can destroy an area to something that hit small targets. It means that can use $100k rocket instead of air attack to destroy supply dumps, command posts, and bridges.

pelasaco 4y ago

yes, specially because NATO outnumbers Russia. So you have a giant supporting Ukraine, which isn't exactly a small country.

squarefoot 4y ago
This assuming that NATO won't turn their back to Ukraine one day. Russia is forced to continue this war to a favorable point, because any withdrawal that is not accompanied by a significant territorial acquisition that can be trumpeted by internal and external propaganda would result in Putin's political demise and possibly his death too. Russia's tactics of weakening Ukrainian people support for their government through civilian objectives bombings and war crimes might unfortunately work if NATO doesn't hurry and give Ukraine the weapons and assistance they need ASAP instead of wasting time bouncing responsibilities. There's people dying over there each day, and I find revolting that seeing that it takes them months to even decide to send tanks or not.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  By now, NATO is so deep in that if it abandons the battlefield, American and British credibility will be annihilated. No one would trust an ally which sticks with you for a year in the most massive European land war since 1945, only to go away later and leave you hanging.
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    I hope so much you're right.
- jonstewart 4y ago
  Russia isn’t forced to pursue the war. They could withdraw and that would be a good thing.
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    Yes, but today Russia does what Putin says, unless they overthrow him. If we accept the fact that Putin is a dictator, then, like every other dictator, he could have only two choices: winning or dying.

dash2 4y ago

The argument is not about which side is stronger. Instead, the argument is that democratic institutions are ultimately supported because states need citizen armies to fight, and that may not be true any more. See the Ticchi and Vindigni paper that I link to for evidence on that score.