I feel like this is increasingly Not Our Problem. Convincing Putin to end the war in a way palatable to the Russian society requires concessions unpalatable to Ukraine and rest of Europe (legitimising changing borders by force). The other way is increasing the pressure until the Russian army collapses. Putin may end up losing his life in the process, like the last Tzar (continuing the 1917 analogy). Again, Not Our Problem. The West has tried repeatedly to share the responsibility for Russia's development into a stable, civilised neighbour, and it simply never worked. We can't do this transition for the Russians. They have to want it themselves. Until they do, all we can do is maintain enough deterrence so that Russia doesn't invade us.
Sure but we don't argue the West should help Putin find a good exit. It is Still Our Problem in the sense that understanding the domestic constraints matters for any Western strategy, including the increase-pressure-until-Rusia-breaks approach you're talking about. I guess the basic idea is we should not assume Putin can unilaterally end this when he wants, and start thinking about what structural conditions would make peace less costly than war
It seems that Trump is sort of speed running the same dilemma? The expected costs of continuing the Iran war in perpetuity clearly exceed the termination costs, but the expected costs of continuing *one more day* very much do not. And so the bleeding continues, one day at a time. But I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that Trump will hit the wall before 1569 days pass.
exactly, the same temporal discounting mechanism at work. The difference is Trump can still walk away with far fewer consequences. That's the thing about being a real superpower instead of a pretend one like Russia, you can fuck up more than once
Strong analysis—the war-trap framing convinces. One gentle qualifier on the "stopping means defense-industry collapse" pillar: the work doesn't stop when the fighting does. Russia has burned through its Soviet-era stockpiles, and almost everything produced now goes straight to the front. A ceasefire would just redirect that output from the front to the warehouse—years of full-capacity production to rebuild depleted reserves. For the arms sector, the off-ramp is a redirection, not a cliff. The veteran and combat-pay shocks are real; the industrial one is softer than it looks.
I feel like this is increasingly Not Our Problem. Convincing Putin to end the war in a way palatable to the Russian society requires concessions unpalatable to Ukraine and rest of Europe (legitimising changing borders by force). The other way is increasing the pressure until the Russian army collapses. Putin may end up losing his life in the process, like the last Tzar (continuing the 1917 analogy). Again, Not Our Problem. The West has tried repeatedly to share the responsibility for Russia's development into a stable, civilised neighbour, and it simply never worked. We can't do this transition for the Russians. They have to want it themselves. Until they do, all we can do is maintain enough deterrence so that Russia doesn't invade us.
Sure but we don't argue the West should help Putin find a good exit. It is Still Our Problem in the sense that understanding the domestic constraints matters for any Western strategy, including the increase-pressure-until-Rusia-breaks approach you're talking about. I guess the basic idea is we should not assume Putin can unilaterally end this when he wants, and start thinking about what structural conditions would make peace less costly than war
Agreed
It seems that Trump is sort of speed running the same dilemma? The expected costs of continuing the Iran war in perpetuity clearly exceed the termination costs, but the expected costs of continuing *one more day* very much do not. And so the bleeding continues, one day at a time. But I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that Trump will hit the wall before 1569 days pass.
exactly, the same temporal discounting mechanism at work. The difference is Trump can still walk away with far fewer consequences. That's the thing about being a real superpower instead of a pretend one like Russia, you can fuck up more than once
Congrats on cracking the top 100 !!
Strong analysis—the war-trap framing convinces. One gentle qualifier on the "stopping means defense-industry collapse" pillar: the work doesn't stop when the fighting does. Russia has burned through its Soviet-era stockpiles, and almost everything produced now goes straight to the front. A ceasefire would just redirect that output from the front to the warehouse—years of full-capacity production to rebuild depleted reserves. For the arms sector, the off-ramp is a redirection, not a cliff. The veteran and combat-pay shocks are real; the industrial one is softer than it looks.
Totally inept and, at the same time, misleading and malicious text
Why?