4 ms·

Considering the number of people who died and the number of babies that haven't been born due to the conflict, I'd argue that would have been a counter-argument

Considering the number of people who died and the number of babies that haven't been born due to the conflict, I'd argue that would have been a counter-argument against engaging into this whole mess. The longer this goes on, the dire the prospects are for the Russian speaking world.

nostrademons 3y ago
Peter Zeihan had an interesting take on this, that the Russians moved on Ukraine because their demographic decline means that if they don't invade now, they will forever lose the ability to wage war and hence defend their homeland. The Soviet-era population is rapidly aging out of military service age, and the post-Soviet generation is tiny, and so they will not be able to field a meaningful army if they wait. Basically Ukraine is a last-ditch attempt to save the Russian state. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-r7z0lM5_k&t=42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-r7z0lM5_k&t=42s Interestingly, he predicted the Ukraine war 5 years before it happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkuhWA9GdCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkuhWA9GdCo
- hardware2win 3y ago
  >Interestingly, he predicted the Ukraine war 5 years before it happened: But isnt the war ongoing since 2014?
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea, and the world shrugged. The prediction was more stark, that Russia would attempt to march straight across Ukraine and invade Poland and Moldova. So far that appears to be their intent, though they got hung up in eastern Ukraine (see: Russia's demographic decline being too advanced to field an effective army).
    - iamacyborg 3y ago
      I’m not sure you can call the political and economic response to the annexation of Crimea and the shooting down of a civilian craft a shrug.
      - George83728 3y ago
        It was basically a shrug; for instance the 2014 invasion wasn't enough to cancel NS-2. Lots of people, Europeans particularly, continued to do business with Russia. In doing so, they were funding the full scale invasion that followed. Only after Feb 2022 did the international community get a bit more serious about sanctioning Russia. Also the shrug at 2014 wasn't unprecedented. The world also shrugged when Russia invaded Georgia 6 years before that in 2008.
        red-iron-pine 3y ago
        Georgia is not in the EU or NATO, and has no real impact on anything in the 1st world. To paraphrase a US President "no dog in that fight"
        cmurf 3y ago
        Georgia and Russia are UN signatories. Invasion is still expressly illegal. If we make excuses, that aggressive wars of conquest to expand borders and subjugate people is sometimes OK - inevitably leads to "the world does not deserve peace". It really is throw the baby out with the bathwater, because the document everyone agreed to while bodies were still rotting, says aggression must be stopped so it doesn't spread. Apparently the past does not effectively speak to the present, that people still think its OK to negotiate with tyranny. Cutting a deal that involves giving up on millions of people just to save your own skin is what damns humanity, and should damn it, straight to hell. Humans volunteering other humans are scum. It's unconscionable to me the degree of apathy involved. The willingness to try to bribe tyranny with other people's land, lives, their fucking children. The potentially fatal flaw of the UN charter isn't the obligation of all members to stop any aggression. It was never even slightly imagined that a founding member, and permanent member of the Security Council, would conduct a war of conquest. And so now the Security Council is rendered useless. Poland has an article 51 right to aid Ukraine in collective defense. They can send ground troops. They can send and launch long range weapons. Moscow is a legitimate military target. We are here because of every inaction that came before.
    - pmontra 3y ago
      You need more than people to field an effective army. You need to equip them and lead them in an effective way. To go back almost 100 years, Mussolini in Italy used to boast to have 8 million bayonets [1]. We know the results. [1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/edward-luttwak/not-uniquely-incompetent https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/edward-luttwak/not-u...
      - nostrademons 3y ago
        That's part of the demographic issues that Russia has, though. The science & engineering talent needed to keep their military machine going is all of Soviet vintage, meaning they entered their careers before 1991. They are all in their 50s at a minimum now, retiring within the next 10 years, and with Russian life expectancy for males at 65, may die shortly after. The 1990s were a lost generation for Russia, and then talented young engineers that came of age in the 2000s and 2010s largely went into more lucrative software jobs. Many emigrated to the West; I work with a number of them. The folks who can keep all the old military hardware running (let alone develop new ones) are getting increasingly old, and won't be around much longer.
    - detourdog 3y ago
      I think the Donbas has been a sight of conflict since 2014. I think the shrug lasted until the second invasion of 2021.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      Moldova... maybe. Poland has been in NATO for a while now; non-starter unless he wanted WW3. And those would be NATO regulars in the mix, not kelptocrats in NATO hand-me-downs.
      - ddalex 3y ago
        two years ago NATO seemed to be an organisation in shambles, with no mission and no purpose.... Kremlin's propaganda even said - Do you really expect Germans and French to come and fight for some backward eastern european country ? The resolution and unity displayed by NATO members surprised everybody, even the NATO members themselves
- Guthur 3y ago
  Peter has such an obvious bias, and desire to sell his books. He looked positively unhinged on the Joe Rogan podcast. The over simplification of the Ukrainian situation is unreal, it's like we all collectively forgot the last 8-9 years of open civil war.
  - phatfish 3y ago
    Most guests are on the Rogan podcast to sell a book, or shill something. Unless they are one of his inner circle. This guy seems unusual however, probably one of the few used as plausible deniability to prove he doesn't exclusively have right wing conspiracy theorists on, to keep the Spotify money flowing.
    - Guthur 3y ago
      Oh Peter was definitely selling his new book at the time, but his mannerism came across as quite manic. I actually bought one of Peter's books and found it quite enlightening at the time, but then found out that some of it didn't quite like up with reality and he seemed unwilling to adjust some of those view points.
- Eupraxias 3y ago
  Yes, but I think Peter's point is that they moved because their demographic decline means they have less and less chance of achieving the main goal - securing the eight access points along the Russian border. Ukraine is just "on the way to two of them". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-jOLF2T4c&t=221 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-jOLF2T4c&t=221
- Tommstein 3y ago
  It doesn't take that many people to launch the nukes.

nostrademons 3y ago

Peter Zeihan had an interesting take on this, that the Russians moved on Ukraine because their demographic decline means that if they don't invade now, they will forever lose the ability to wage war and hence defend their homeland. The Soviet-era population is rapidly aging out of military service age, and the post-Soviet generation is tiny, and so they will not be able to field a meaningful army if they wait. Basically Ukraine is a last-ditch attempt to save the Russian state. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-r7z0lM5_k&t=42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-r7z0lM5_k&t=42s Interestingly, he predicted the Ukraine war 5 years before it happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkuhWA9GdCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkuhWA9GdCo

hardware2win 3y ago
>Interestingly, he predicted the Ukraine war 5 years before it happened: But isnt the war ongoing since 2014?
- nostrademons 3y ago
  In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea, and the world shrugged. The prediction was more stark, that Russia would attempt to march straight across Ukraine and invade Poland and Moldova. So far that appears to be their intent, though they got hung up in eastern Ukraine (see: Russia's demographic decline being too advanced to field an effective army).
  - iamacyborg 3y ago
    I’m not sure you can call the political and economic response to the annexation of Crimea and the shooting down of a civilian craft a shrug.
    - George83728 3y ago
      It was basically a shrug; for instance the 2014 invasion wasn't enough to cancel NS-2. Lots of people, Europeans particularly, continued to do business with Russia. In doing so, they were funding the full scale invasion that followed. Only after Feb 2022 did the international community get a bit more serious about sanctioning Russia. Also the shrug at 2014 wasn't unprecedented. The world also shrugged when Russia invaded Georgia 6 years before that in 2008.
      - red-iron-pine 3y ago
        Georgia is not in the EU or NATO, and has no real impact on anything in the 1st world. To paraphrase a US President "no dog in that fight"
        cmurf 3y ago
        Georgia and Russia are UN signatories. Invasion is still expressly illegal. If we make excuses, that aggressive wars of conquest to expand borders and subjugate people is sometimes OK - inevitably leads to "the world does not deserve peace". It really is throw the baby out with the bathwater, because the document everyone agreed to while bodies were still rotting, says aggression must be stopped so it doesn't spread. Apparently the past does not effectively speak to the present, that people still think its OK to negotiate with tyranny. Cutting a deal that involves giving up on millions of people just to save your own skin is what damns humanity, and should damn it, straight to hell. Humans volunteering other humans are scum. It's unconscionable to me the degree of apathy involved. The willingness to try to bribe tyranny with other people's land, lives, their fucking children. The potentially fatal flaw of the UN charter isn't the obligation of all members to stop any aggression. It was never even slightly imagined that a founding member, and permanent member of the Security Council, would conduct a war of conquest. And so now the Security Council is rendered useless. Poland has an article 51 right to aid Ukraine in collective defense. They can send ground troops. They can send and launch long range weapons. Moscow is a legitimate military target. We are here because of every inaction that came before.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    You need more than people to field an effective army. You need to equip them and lead them in an effective way. To go back almost 100 years, Mussolini in Italy used to boast to have 8 million bayonets [1]. We know the results. [1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/edward-luttwak/not-uniquely-incompetent https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/edward-luttwak/not-u...
    - nostrademons 3y ago
      That's part of the demographic issues that Russia has, though. The science & engineering talent needed to keep their military machine going is all of Soviet vintage, meaning they entered their careers before 1991. They are all in their 50s at a minimum now, retiring within the next 10 years, and with Russian life expectancy for males at 65, may die shortly after. The 1990s were a lost generation for Russia, and then talented young engineers that came of age in the 2000s and 2010s largely went into more lucrative software jobs. Many emigrated to the West; I work with a number of them. The folks who can keep all the old military hardware running (let alone develop new ones) are getting increasingly old, and won't be around much longer.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    I think the Donbas has been a sight of conflict since 2014. I think the shrug lasted until the second invasion of 2021.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Moldova... maybe. Poland has been in NATO for a while now; non-starter unless he wanted WW3. And those would be NATO regulars in the mix, not kelptocrats in NATO hand-me-downs.
    - ddalex 3y ago
      two years ago NATO seemed to be an organisation in shambles, with no mission and no purpose.... Kremlin's propaganda even said - Do you really expect Germans and French to come and fight for some backward eastern european country ? The resolution and unity displayed by NATO members surprised everybody, even the NATO members themselves
Guthur 3y ago
Peter has such an obvious bias, and desire to sell his books. He looked positively unhinged on the Joe Rogan podcast. The over simplification of the Ukrainian situation is unreal, it's like we all collectively forgot the last 8-9 years of open civil war.
- phatfish 3y ago
  Most guests are on the Rogan podcast to sell a book, or shill something. Unless they are one of his inner circle. This guy seems unusual however, probably one of the few used as plausible deniability to prove he doesn't exclusively have right wing conspiracy theorists on, to keep the Spotify money flowing.
  - Guthur 3y ago
    Oh Peter was definitely selling his new book at the time, but his mannerism came across as quite manic. I actually bought one of Peter's books and found it quite enlightening at the time, but then found out that some of it didn't quite like up with reality and he seemed unwilling to adjust some of those view points.
Eupraxias 3y ago
Yes, but I think Peter's point is that they moved because their demographic decline means they have less and less chance of achieving the main goal - securing the eight access points along the Russian border. Ukraine is just "on the way to two of them". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-jOLF2T4c&t=221 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-jOLF2T4c&t=221
Tommstein 3y ago
It doesn't take that many people to launch the nukes.