every time he describes Russia’s actions in the war as really stupid it just grates on me
The amount of blood and treasure Russia has thrown at this conflict suggests their leadership went in half-cocked, having failed to game out the real long-term impact of a ground invasion. Maybe their military leadership could have simply done a better job of targeting and killing critical masses of people in the Ukrainian territory. Maybe they should have been more conservative and simply taken/secured the Donbas like they took North Osetia and Crimea. Or maybe the whole invasion was ill-conceived.
However you slice it, the real military consequences of endless pitched battles on the Russia-Ukraine border combined with the loss of valuable infrastructure (Nordstream 2, et al) and the alienation of regional allies (China, most notably, but possibly Türkiye and chunks of East Africa by the time we're done) will have long term negative consequences for the Russia state.
“lmao putin dumb” is just dogshit liberal “analysis”.
No worse than "lmao Bush dumb" or "lmao Bernie Sanders dumb", at the end of the day. They're right to note that Putin's inner circle failed to give him good actionable advice. They're right to note that Russia is giving up a not-insubstantial number of young people and a not-insubstantial amount of domestic resources to play tug-of-war with DC and Berlin over a mere corner of its western border. They're right to note that wars are, generally speaking, a failure of foreign policy at a very basic level.
What these analytics often leave out is how disastrous this war will be for Western Europe as well. Or how it ultimately distracts from more pressing Western interests - most prominently Chinese socio-economic expansion along the Pacific Rim. Or how the Western states are investing their own blood and treasure in a fruitless shit-flinging competition while their domestic institutions crumble. Or how America - in particular - has a large body of white nationalists sympathetic to Russian media and ideology who may pose an existential threat to the American neoliberal hegemony in the same way that neoliberals in Russia ultimately brought down the Soviet state 30 years earlier.
Much like how Iraq transformed from an American tentative ally to a regional thorn to a massive self-defeating quagmire, Ukraine is shaping up to be the death of both Russian and US-backed modern leadership. Its Lose-Lose.
The amount of blood and treasure Russia has thrown at this conflict suggests their leadership went in half-cocked, having failed to game out the real long-term impact of a ground invasion. Maybe their military leadership could have simply done a better job of targeting and killing critical masses of people in the Ukrainian territory. Maybe they should have been more conservative and simply taken/secured the Donbas like they took North Osetia and Crimea. Or maybe the whole invasion was ill-conceived.
However you slice it, the real military consequences of endless pitched battles on the Russia-Ukraine border combined with the loss of valuable infrastructure (Nordstream 2, et al) and the alienation of regional allies (China, most notably, but possibly Türkiye and chunks of East Africa by the time we're done) will have long term negative consequences for the Russia state.
No worse than "lmao Bush dumb" or "lmao Bernie Sanders dumb", at the end of the day. They're right to note that Putin's inner circle failed to give him good actionable advice. They're right to note that Russia is giving up a not-insubstantial number of young people and a not-insubstantial amount of domestic resources to play tug-of-war with DC and Berlin over a mere corner of its western border. They're right to note that wars are, generally speaking, a failure of foreign policy at a very basic level.
What these analytics often leave out is how disastrous this war will be for Western Europe as well. Or how it ultimately distracts from more pressing Western interests - most prominently Chinese socio-economic expansion along the Pacific Rim. Or how the Western states are investing their own blood and treasure in a fruitless shit-flinging competition while their domestic institutions crumble. Or how America - in particular - has a large body of white nationalists sympathetic to Russian media and ideology who may pose an existential threat to the American neoliberal hegemony in the same way that neoliberals in Russia ultimately brought down the Soviet state 30 years earlier.
Much like how Iraq transformed from an American tentative ally to a regional thorn to a massive self-defeating quagmire, Ukraine is shaping up to be the death of both Russian and US-backed modern leadership. Its Lose-Lose.