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As someone who has been arguing for a war with Russia, I don't think there's been many attempts to manufacture consent for it. In fact, I've noticed a lot of o

As someone who has been arguing for a war with Russia, I don't think there's been many attempts to manufacture consent for it. In fact, I've noticed a lot of opposition to my view that I think is state organized, but probably by Russia. I've seen zero people like me online. I've seen zero repeated pro-war, zero capability-emphasizing arguments. Complete silence except for me.

decimalenough 1y ago
By "war with Russia", do you mean sending troops to fight in Ukraine? Or Napoleon style march to Moscow? Because those are very different things.
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  No, I don't believe that it's tactically sensible to send troops where Russian troops are already entrenched or ready for war. I believe that war should be conducted to exploit the enemy, not go at him in some idiot maneuver. Our actions in Ukraine should be limited to stand-off weapons and glide bombs, mirror the Russian manner of aerial attack. We should also attack gas pipelines, ammonia plants, electrical infrastructure, etc. in Russia and generally shut the place down. We should of course also seize all Russian-flagged ships. Exploits its dependence on transport and cheap energy, exploit Russia's size by seizing weak or undefended regions to force troop movements, attacking the troops with stand-off weapons while their being transported to the front etc. Basically, we're playing tennis, and they're playing with both corridors in addition to the singles court. We should of course let them run. I am absolutely opposed to sending ground troops against Russian positions or any region with sufficient defence, or capacity to resist. This risks the lives of soldiers needlessly and is not what war is about.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    Do you also advocate the evacuation of the cities of whichever countries engage in the attacks you describe to reduce deaths in case Moscow responds by nuking those cities?
    - impossiblefork 1y ago
      I don't see nuclear attacks from Russia as probable. They know well that any attacks by them will be matched by attacks by us, so any nuclear exchange is just miscalculation on their part. It will end quickly. It's important to understand that threats are irrelevant. If somebody says 'Eat this horrible snail, or I'll you shoot you' you just say 'No, you can shoot me anyway'. Same thing here. If they nuke us, so what? They can do that today too. It's not in our power to decide whether they nuke us, and therefore it can't be a reason to limit any action against them. Upon this there is of course also our own capability to nuke them, and due to Russian attitudes and their view of their place in the world any nuclear exchange with them will be short. They can choose to erase us if they are willing to erase themselves. That's their power, but the Russians won't ever be willing to erase themselves. They believe that they are on par with the US and a cultural beacon that is critical to the balance of the world, something without which there's nothing that matters. They will never choose to erase themselves. Because of this-- mutually assured destruction and the irrelevance of threats, nuclear weapons only matters when one power has them and the other does not. It doesn't make sense for the Russians to erase themselves even if I stand at outside Moscow with an army, even if I have taken Moscow. There's never a slice when it makes sense. Thus the balance between nuclear power is determined entirely by the balance of conventional forces.
      - hollerith 1y ago
        It sort of sounds like you believe that Washington (or any other country with enough nukes) could use nukes to kill every single Russian and that Moscow could use nukes to kill every single American. This belief gets repeated a lot on the internet: a full "exchange" of nukes is game over. In reality, even if Moscow were cheating on its treaty obligations and had (in ready-to-use form) every nuke that the Soviet Union possessed at the peak of its arsenal, plus all the intercontinental missiles and bombers the Soviets had at the peak of their arsenal, Moscow could kill only about half of the US population. Since the Russian population is more concentrated in cities than the US population, Washington could kill about 55% of Russians with the arsenal it possessed at the height of the Cold War. There is a bit of a wild card in these estimates: if the effect called nuclear winter turns out to be as bad as some say it will be, a lot more would die (mostly outside the countries that got nuked). Nuclear winter will probably turn out to be a nothing burger, but we cannot know that for sure, so there is some chance it would cause the deaths of most of the people in the world, but if Moscow's situation becomes desperate enough and there is a clearly identified enemy who is causing the desperation, it start to become rational for Moscow to bet that the nuclear winter won't be extremely bad (which it probably won't be). Moscow might calculate that Russian are better at enduring hardships than the West is, so Russia will be able to recover from the nuclear exchange before the West does, so that in a model in which the only thing that matters is Russia's strength relative to the West, a nuclear exchange can make sense -- not now, but if the situation becomes more desperate for Moscow because of the attacks you describe.

decimalenough 1y ago

By "war with Russia", do you mean sending troops to fight in Ukraine? Or Napoleon style march to Moscow? Because those are very different things.

impossiblefork 1y ago
No, I don't believe that it's tactically sensible to send troops where Russian troops are already entrenched or ready for war. I believe that war should be conducted to exploit the enemy, not go at him in some idiot maneuver. Our actions in Ukraine should be limited to stand-off weapons and glide bombs, mirror the Russian manner of aerial attack. We should also attack gas pipelines, ammonia plants, electrical infrastructure, etc. in Russia and generally shut the place down. We should of course also seize all Russian-flagged ships. Exploits its dependence on transport and cheap energy, exploit Russia's size by seizing weak or undefended regions to force troop movements, attacking the troops with stand-off weapons while their being transported to the front etc. Basically, we're playing tennis, and they're playing with both corridors in addition to the singles court. We should of course let them run. I am absolutely opposed to sending ground troops against Russian positions or any region with sufficient defence, or capacity to resist. This risks the lives of soldiers needlessly and is not what war is about.
- hollerith 1y ago
  Do you also advocate the evacuation of the cities of whichever countries engage in the attacks you describe to reduce deaths in case Moscow responds by nuking those cities?
  - impossiblefork 1y ago
    I don't see nuclear attacks from Russia as probable. They know well that any attacks by them will be matched by attacks by us, so any nuclear exchange is just miscalculation on their part. It will end quickly. It's important to understand that threats are irrelevant. If somebody says 'Eat this horrible snail, or I'll you shoot you' you just say 'No, you can shoot me anyway'. Same thing here. If they nuke us, so what? They can do that today too. It's not in our power to decide whether they nuke us, and therefore it can't be a reason to limit any action against them. Upon this there is of course also our own capability to nuke them, and due to Russian attitudes and their view of their place in the world any nuclear exchange with them will be short. They can choose to erase us if they are willing to erase themselves. That's their power, but the Russians won't ever be willing to erase themselves. They believe that they are on par with the US and a cultural beacon that is critical to the balance of the world, something without which there's nothing that matters. They will never choose to erase themselves. Because of this-- mutually assured destruction and the irrelevance of threats, nuclear weapons only matters when one power has them and the other does not. It doesn't make sense for the Russians to erase themselves even if I stand at outside Moscow with an army, even if I have taken Moscow. There's never a slice when it makes sense. Thus the balance between nuclear power is determined entirely by the balance of conventional forces.
    - hollerith 1y ago
      It sort of sounds like you believe that Washington (or any other country with enough nukes) could use nukes to kill every single Russian and that Moscow could use nukes to kill every single American. This belief gets repeated a lot on the internet: a full "exchange" of nukes is game over. In reality, even if Moscow were cheating on its treaty obligations and had (in ready-to-use form) every nuke that the Soviet Union possessed at the peak of its arsenal, plus all the intercontinental missiles and bombers the Soviets had at the peak of their arsenal, Moscow could kill only about half of the US population. Since the Russian population is more concentrated in cities than the US population, Washington could kill about 55% of Russians with the arsenal it possessed at the height of the Cold War. There is a bit of a wild card in these estimates: if the effect called nuclear winter turns out to be as bad as some say it will be, a lot more would die (mostly outside the countries that got nuked). Nuclear winter will probably turn out to be a nothing burger, but we cannot know that for sure, so there is some chance it would cause the deaths of most of the people in the world, but if Moscow's situation becomes desperate enough and there is a clearly identified enemy who is causing the desperation, it start to become rational for Moscow to bet that the nuclear winter won't be extremely bad (which it probably won't be). Moscow might calculate that Russian are better at enduring hardships than the West is, so Russia will be able to recover from the nuclear exchange before the West does, so that in a model in which the only thing that matters is Russia's strength relative to the West, a nuclear exchange can make sense -- not now, but if the situation becomes more desperate for Moscow because of the attacks you describe.