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Weapons firms influence the Ukraine debate
- ceejayoz 3y agoHaving never heard of this org, I looked them up on Wikipedia. Fascinatingly: initial funding "included half a million dollars each from George Soros' Open Society Foundations and Charles Koch's Koch Foundation". Don't see that combo every day.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- Synaesthesia 3y agoThey’re advocates of the realist school of political thought.
- 0xDEF 3y agoWhy not? George Soros is socially left-leaning (not to be conflated with fiscally left-leaning) and funds left-leaning anti-war organizations. The Koch brothers have been funding right-libertarian organizations for decades, including libertarian anti-war organizations. Responsible Statecraft is an anti-war organization that is predominantly right-libertarian however they work together with left-leaning anti-war organizations. It's worth pointing out that right-libertarians were the OG anti-war movement in the US and even opposed US support and involvement in the European front during WW2. Responsible Statecraft are the ideological descendants of those people.
- EA-3167 3y ago> It's worth pointing out that right-libertarians were the OG anti-war movement in the US and even opposed US support and involvement in the European front during WW2. Responsible Statecraft are the ideological descendants of those people. Yikes, that's a nasty genealogy for any group. "Hey we're the people who thought it was fine if Hitler and Stalin divided Europe, and Japan conquered Asia."
- aubanel 3y agoI think the other side of the spectrum, "let's remove from power anyone who does not share our values / does not uphold our interests", also leads to nasty things, like the long list of US-backed coups in Latin America [0]. (I'm not saying that isolationism is the right solution, just that interventionism can go bad) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- EA-3167 3y agoIronically the same right-libertarians have always been huge fans of intervention in "the US sphere". Their desire to let the rest of the world rot notwithstanding.
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoI'll make one thing clear: yes. Yikes indeed. But, having said that, it is very important to note that among Normal Folk in the conservative camp, it's become much more acceptable to say that we befriended the wrong monster in the conflict. I can't emphasize how much I disagree with this on both practical and moral levels, but I do work in a place and an industry that's extremely conservative, and - weirdly - WW2 (and guns!) are one of the few areas of safe conversation for me. I didn't realize how much things had shifted, so I had to poker face hard when this came up. <serious_historian_face.gif> To the larger OP - oh yeah. Ha. So much stuff that the <military> sent back (because it didn't work, duh) gets to be sent back over the water again at top dollar. And no one will ever know! Because Ukraine classifies <these_things> as artillery (which is smart!) and not <other_things>, so whatever they end up using them for (spares, etc) will be invisible to the powers that be. Unlike when everything came back from Afghanistan, and Important People noticed that "the product" never worked (or "existed"), and - from the get-go - was a box of non-matching parts sourced from "Procurement Director's Immediate Family Enterprises". Ukrainians won't complain about that - they need parts!
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- notahacker 3y agoWhilst what you say is true (left and libertarian capitalists often have overlapping isolationist ideas on conflicts), Soros' position is distinct from that because whilst he may be socially somewhat left leaning and unimpressed with US Middle Eastern adventures, he favours the protection and spread of Western liberalism (and is above all else anti Russian nationalism expressed across international borders). So not only is he not necessarily aligned with the reflexively anti-war elements and definitely not an isolationist, but he's openly and ardently in favour of Western support for Ukraine in this conflict. Of course, this is also exhibit A for "prominent commentators' views are often only incidentally aligned with their funders' interests and sometimes at loggerheads with them..."
- lordnacho 3y agoSeems to be a completely missed side of freedom-of-speech. We keep talking about being allowed to talk, but we rarely hear about who is talking. "The best idea will win" is quaintly 18th-century enlightenment. They hadn't foreseen the media machines of the future.
- lm28469 3y agoIt has absolutely nothing to do with freedom of speech though
- ceejayoz 3y agoSure it does. Freedom of speech has the side effect of wealthy people and organizations being able to purchase louder speech, and often mask that process.
- TexanFeller 3y agoThis is the big problem with corporate personhood. If we ditch that concept, which seems nonsensical on its face to me, our individual free speech can remain better protected. Without corporate personhood those individual limits on campaign donations and lobbying might actually work.
- tiahura 3y agoSo freedom of the press doesn’t apply to the corporation New York Times, Inc.?
- TexanFeller 3y agoDedicated news organizations are protected separately by freedom of the press, no need to make Exxon and Apple "persons" with free speech rights to maintain freedom of the press. There probably need to be additional restrictions on what constitutes a news organization though otherwise Google might start calling itself "the press" and partisan organizations will own the press. Things like not engaging in other forms of business or taking money from lobbyists and political campaigns.
- DirectorKrennic 3y agoThe following can both be true: - Defense contractors, who have a vested interest in selling more weapons, are subtly influencing the public debate about Ukraine to convince the government to award more weapon contracts. - On its merits, from a purely strategic point of view, it would be a good idea to buy more weapons for Ukraine to help them push Russian forces out of occupied territories. So this is a situation where the greed of defense contractors may coincide with the common good, at least for a while. But we should remain vigilant and have safeguards in place to ensure that these firms don't price gouge the taxpayer.
- willcipriano 3y agoSince the media is clearly carrying water for the weapons manufacturers by bringing them on without disclosure of the huge and obvious conflict of interest, I doubt the accuracy of the merits of this conflict that were also presented by them.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fsloth 3y agoThe war in Ukraine is pretty clear cut for a modern conflict. It's colonial war with a disturbingly high component of genocidal intent of eradicating Ukrainian culture and identity. It's as black and white as wars get.
- zdragnar 3y ago[flagged]
- _kbh_ 3y ago> as well as bio-engineering "research" facilities that were ostensibly fronts for weapons manufacturing. What there is no evidence of this in any reality. > "Colonial war" and "genocidal intent" really don't factor into what Russia expected to be a fast annexation of its former territory. They keep talking about how Ukrainians aren't real people or a real country and that they will quote "kill as many Ukrainians" as it takes. Sounds like genocide to me.
- dale_glass 3y agoOf course, and in other news, Microsoft thinks Microsoft software is the best solution to any problem. What worries me more though is the lack of weapons. Here's why: It's clear Russia isn't going to stop. Putin would find it extremely embarrassing and politically harmful to just stop without getting anything out of it. All those sanctions, all that money, all those lives lost would be all for nothing. It's equally clear Ukraine isn't going to stop. They see it (in my opinion very correctly) as a very existential fight to preserve their country and culture. Surrendering a good chunk of your country to an enemy that's been killing your people for a year is also politically nonviable and maybe even impossible. So obviously this is only ending when one side becomes unwilling or unable to keep fighting. If giving weapons to Ukraine is a good thing at all then the most moral option to me is giving Ukraine the means to achieve a swift, decisive win. Keeping things even has no legitimate purpose to it, it only gets more people killed on both sides.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- hef19898 3y agoThere are enough weapons available, ammo might become tight one day so. Those weapons, from tanks rifles to planes, are modern so. That means that Ukrainian operators need training, that takes time. Logistics have to be set-up for everything from spares to consumables, that takes time. Not to forget that some of the stuff wasn't properly maintained for quite some time by the donor nations, so they need repairs, maintenance and overhaul. That takes time. As long as NATO is willing to support Ukraine, a lack of weapons and gear shouldn't be a problem.
- dale_glass 3y agoI mean more the quality than the quantity. There's all sorts of hangups with things like ATACMS. All I'm saying is that I find this gradual escalation very unpleasant. If we side with Ukraine then let's end this as quickly and decisively as possible. Stretching this out to years of gradual escalation where during a given month we decide "Okay, maybe Ukraine now can have HIMARS, or better tanks, or better missiles" seems like the worst way to do things. I think long term the current strategy means more money, more dead people, less clear politics and worse PR.
- throw55 3y ago[dead]
- trabant00 3y ago[flagged]
- tptacek 3y agoIt is probably not reasonable to suggest that Eliot Cohen advocates forceful resistance against Russia because CSIS corporate sponsors happen to include arms manufacturers. First, CSIS sponsors are a "who's who" of blue chip corporate America and are in no way dominated by arms dealers; second, Cohen is well known for his foreign policy positions, and if Northrop happens to be bankrolling 1/40th of his work, it's because of Cohen's reputation; the article has the causality reversed. Further, the article would be a lot more honest if it more clearly acknowledged that CSIS does make its corporate donor list public. This is one of those pieces where I feel like the authors are counting on the audience not to know basic facts. It feels like they're trying to hoodwink me. The Quincy Institute has what I understand to be a solid reputation, so you'd think they'd do better than this. (None of this makes Elliot Cohen right! He goes way farther than the mainstream consensus on how to respond to the Russia/Ukraine situation. But to the extent that Quincy --- an overtly isolationist think tank --- wants to advocate against him, they should do it on the merits, not by trying to work the refs.)