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I think the lesson to take from this is: if you aren't willing to lay down your life to stop a dictator, expect to eventually lay down your life on that dictator's behalf.
Did you make that up? That's a great one
I have little patience for small minded people who study the pecking order of which minority/group will get sacrificed first on the dictator's behalf like people study horse races and try to suss out which is the winning side... it is such a boring, complicated story full of exhausting avalanches of illusionary words and one concrete flow of hate that eventually obliterates everything no matter what all of the other words say.
There really isn't a choice, you either treat solidarity as a plant to be gardened, nurtured and cared for or you betray your future self and spend the rest of your life hurting others in an active denial of how your own cynicism sabotaged you.
I think they convince themselves that the dictator will stop at the scapegoat-of-the-week and never come for them. It really only bears out insofar as the dictatorship will either collapse or transition to a steady state of powerlessness for the average citizen where the dictator no longer feels they need the facade of trying to improve conditions, like where North Korea is.
I wonder what long-term effects this war will have on Russian population. More territory in Ukraine, but at the cost of size of future generations, as all their young men currently get drafted into the meat grinder?
At the very least the question What does it mean to be "russian"? will for decades to come center around grappling with (or living in violent denial of) this reality that Putin/russia threw russia's future away by sacrificing the next generations of russians and whoever else they can get their hands on to a useless, futile war fought with brutally outdated tactics that wasted the lives of future russian artists, engineers, photographers, carpenters, farmers, mechanics etc......
Russia desperately needed that generation to shepherd russia into a green energy transition, to modernize and integrate russia into a radically changing technologically advanced world. Instead of valuing that generation russia decided that the average young human body was worthless with the advent off drones and AI and that they were to be discarded and thinned out from russian society to more easily cement the power of the russian oligarchs who possess the reigns of the drone armies and AI compute power.
The problem for Putin/russia is that human beings are valuable and if you throw away all of yours with disdain for years and years while your opponent doesn't it is only a matter of time until you are irrevocably fucked... which again drives a stake right into the heart of russian culture for being the self-betrayal it ultimately is.
I do wonder if China will eventually make a play for more territory, taking advantage of this weakened Russia. Either through economic, political, or (much more unlikely) military pressure.
I can’t foresee the general populace (especially one decimated by multiple rounds of conscription) having much ‘patriotism’ so far from Moscow.
The loss condition of this war for russia is not really russia collapsing, I don't think China would let that happen. What will happen is that "russia" will basically become a series of Chinese owned brands... and in this sense yes I think China will grasp an immense amount of power from russia and a lot of it might not be that obvious on paper but if it hasn't already effectively happened it is certainly going to.
China didn't invade Ukraine with a physical land army though, so I don't think things will be worse if China gets more control over russia. I am not saying there won't be problems with that, I am sure it keeps US Warhawks obsessed with China up at night, but russia is so totaled, their military so broken, and their military technology so hobbled by years of war sanctions I don't think China gaining effective control over their entire economy bit by bit will make China that much more militarily powerful. China will get a lot out of russia... once they put in the investment to fix the landscape Putin/russia trashed.
Oh absolutely - I’m not saying that the Russian Federation would balkanise and cease to be; but more pointing out that the land dispute between China and Russia, which began in the 60s, was only somewhat recently settled (late 00s from memory) - and I wouldn’t put it past China to press the advantage as a first step towards ultimately subsuming Russia into a vassal state through superior economic power.
There are many economic (mineral resources), political (expansionism), and military (increased presence in the Sea of Japan) reasons that China may want to annex some land from Eastern Russia as a concession for ongoing economic, political or military support to Russia.
A slight correction:
When the dust settles, there will be none of this more territory business.
Just more sunflowers.
If you want an in-depth analysis, Perun has been doing video essays around Ukraine and has good one on the long-term effects of the war (he talks about demographics ~40 minutes in)
I don’t see rich Russians dying. I imagine this is just killing the undesirable ones. Like the ones Sam Altman suggests should die.
That's par for the course in war m'dude. Rich old men declare it, poor young people die in it.
I’ll just sit back and watch the combat footage of them getting blown up by drones. Dead oppressors means a better world. Russian soldiers need to remind themselves of the concept of dragging your officers.