Perhaps you have succumbed to the Beltway propaganda-induced hubris. Your analysis of the military action thus far is facile and one-sided. If you weren't largely basing your analysis on Russia's performance that wouldn't matter, but if you are trying to get into Xi's head you might want a more thorough understanding of what you are talking about, as I sincerely doubt Xi relies solely on western intelligence, as you appear to. The western strategy is claimed to be to weaken Russia through extended conflict, while at the same time admitting that NATO is not in a position to win a war against Russia currently. I wonder what Xi makes of that? I wonder what we Americans ought to make of that? Washington's exuberance might be a tad irrational after all.
May I remind you that the "special military operation" is conducted as such because under Russian law a declaration of war would be necessary to fully deploy the Russian military. This is why the troop numbers in Ukraine are so low. The activity around Kiev was not an attempt at taking that city, rather it was a feint to keep Ukrainian forces engaged there while positions in the east were solidified. All the gleeful western chatter about Russia's dashed expectations are just nonsense. Yes, Russia made mistakes, but they've been rectified and their performance has vastly improved. Without direct intervention from the west Russia will win this war. May I also remind you of all the weapons Russia has lately displayed which were previously unseen by the west, and against which the west obviously has no defensive capabilities as yet.
The truth matters here because while the number you provide for Russian casualties seems highly inflated, you don't mention Ukrainian losses at all, which are coming close to 10% of their entire armed forces. What will the west do when they have run out of Ukrainians with which to fight Russia? At some point NATO will have to enter the battle, the same NATO that recently admitted they can't win. The latest scuttlebutt is that the west is supportive of Poland moving troops into western Ukraine while the Romanians are planning to invade Transnistria to help Ukraine maintain access to the Black Sea at Odessa. These operations have already started and troops and equipment are being put in place currently. Sounds like a world war to me. It seems that the most likely outcome is your last choice: global chaos.
Perhaps the saddest thing about this tragedy is that it was entirely avoidable. If the US had not spent billions to turn Ukraine into a nationalist extremist anti-Russian entity that country would be at peace and many thousands of people would still be alive today. The current political situation in Ukraine has a very complex and interesting history. You should learn about it to fully understand exactly what you are lauding when you praise their troops. You should probably learn a bit more about Russian history while you are at it, so you better understand the peril we face here. After reading this analysis I must admit I have lost a great deal of respect for your analytic capabilities; this is quite a disappointing effort.
Wow, what an amazing overview. What alot of work you have invested in this. thank you very much for sharing. I loved some of the humour - "Suddenly China finds itself alone at the bar. Russia has stumbled off to drunkenly instigate a street fight and lose most of its teeth, and Europa has gone home with the obnoxious middle-aged Yankee in the muscle shirt and overbearing cologne" had me on the floor!
After reading this, I don't want to miss any of your future posts and decided to subscribe. It's weighty (no pun intended, haha!) and important, and I like how you weave all the parts of the analysis together... And, in the end, arrive at a point of inescapable uncertainty at what are truly conclusion-defying times indeed. Many valuable insights along the way, anyhow, and a provocative and daring approach that certainly deserves praise.
Wow. That was the most honest assessment of the proxy war in Ukraine I have read. Impressive.
My first thought is, mix Ukrainian Nazi's flush with victory and increased hatred of Russians, with these guys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3pnFR7DeZA&feature=emb_title (From TKNews, Matt Orfalea's take on warmongers), and we might expect far greater atrocities against Russians than what we have seen so far. Overshoot of triumphal viciousness will not reflect well.
The Trans-Atlantis regime will depend too on keeping a total lockdown on any discussion whatever of Covid Policy and the aftermath. That could become increasingly difficult, when it is the PMC protectors of our elite who are most likely to be harmed by over-vaccination.
Also if we are going to have to accept a Trans takeover of women's sports, and sexualizing of pre-schoolers, and minority social climbers weaponizing race and gender to cancel all their enemies including fellow "progressives", I doubt most people are going to be sanguine about that.
Also, once people figure out that a digital currency would mean technocratic-defined limits on meat, alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, TV time, media choices etc....
Also when we will be expected to line up for our bi-monthly multi-boosters....
And once they start sanctioning American States, or even counties or cities and individuals for wrongthink, that American spirit to be left alone might find it's footing again.
Wow! Quite a piece. This is why I subscribe. It will be interesting to revisit it in 10 years and see how you did. I have only one question:
"A wise leadership elite would go out of its way to avoid antagonizing internal cultural conflicts. But of course we know (because they’ve already started) that they are instead intent on pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor on every possible issue"
How do you mean they are "pushing the accelerator to the floor" in stoking cultural conflicts? It seems to me they are doing the exact opposite (what you prescribe they rationally "should" do), attempting to force conformity across all cultural dimensions.
Thank you - I read to the end over the course of the day and am sending it to my husband. I think the summarization is - it's a big freaking mess. And we are led by the worst possible combination of ideologues and total incompetents at the moment, so I suspect "worse case scenario" is where we land. I don't know that the US can stay united in the face of these scenarios, though - here in the South, and I suspect other red states, frustration and anger is already VERY high. I work in Uganda, where the people are getting absolutely clobbered by prices and supply issues, while China has basically taken ownership of huge swathes of the country including the airport in Entebbe thanks to handing over big loans with patently untenable payment plans resulting in default. (And corruption by the government, which goes without saying.) It's a scary time.
I would like to raise an issue for all of the commenters who have disagreed with Lyons' interpretation of how the war is evolving in Ukraine. He states "For weeks now I have noticed a strange reluctance among some in the West (as least among my fellow let's just say "deeply disillusioned with the establishment observers to accept the reality of this."
Largely because of my own long disillusionment with the establishment (on all levels) I noticed a powerful emotional impulse within me as this war began to want to root for a Russian victory in Ukraine in order to give the U.S. national security apparatus, what I felt, was a well-deserved black eye.
Does anyone else feel that such an impulse has played a significant role in how they tend to view this war?
There is I'm sure some good stuff on China which I might get back to but you so completely misread or you accept the Western media narrative of the current conflict that I can't get past it at the moment and it clouds the rest of the piece. What a pity. Your work has been well thought through and interesting. It is hardly my role to put you right although some researching online would soon show you different perspectives and some hard and often unpleasant facts but I will highlight your second hand personalisation of all that takes place to Putin, your liberal reinterpretation of the clearly expressed aims of Russia, your buying the story of some Battle of Kyiv/Kiev that never took place and your failure to go earlier than the March date in understanding anything of why this happened. It is not some grand Peter the Great plan in Putin's head unless you have evidence of that (beyond US State Dept projection). If anything Putin is criticised internally for not being sufficiently hawkish.
Were you aware of the Donbas conflict since 2014 that has taken 14k lives? - Russian Ukrainian lives taken by Ukrainians through bedded down artillery (which escalated in late Feb). Bandera and the several n a z i groupings meshed into govt and army? Euromaidan? Biolabs? Buruma? Minsk accords? The massing of Ukraine forces on the line of contact signalling imminent invasion of Donbas? Russian military strategy as distinct from the American kind? 'Gas for roubles' and its implications? I could tell you. Or you could research it. I know you are a China focused but since your article rests on questionable foundations it makes all your evident hard work a bit moot. If nothing else, please be more alert to how we are under constant propaganda bombardment and demonstrate some effort to rise above it. Sorry to say this.
This is a truly exciting intellectual synthesis! It’s a breathtaking meld of pretty much everything—geopolitical, economic, cultural, psycho-social—that’s happening in the world right now. In the grandness of its scope, it’s like Marx. How you tie everything together—the possibly rosy aspects of Trans-Atlantis in the first part of the essay, to the absolutely chilling possibility of a universal woke totalitarian hegemony in the second is an awesome intellectual achievement, like being a grandmaster of three-dimensional chess. But, Niall Ferguson pointed out this week in The Good Fellows podcast, that the real reason the Soviet Union lost the Cold War is because it couldn’t make computers. Similarly, China, despite its superior emphasis on STEM education, cannot make its own advanced microchips, nor a COVID-19 vaccine equal to ours. Innovation cannot flourish in totalitarian cultures, which is why I think that a totalitarian hegemonic Trans-Atlantis, if it unfolds as you suggest, would quickly stagnate. And, an hegemony that doesn’t successfully marry Virtual AND Physical, is inherently anti-fragile. Being a pessimist, I tend to think your description of chaos is apt. Even if Trans-Atlantis flourished for awhile, I tend to think that chaos would happen sooner rather than later. Also, if the general mood of the foreign policy establishment in Washington, aka The Blob, is “giddy”, THAT is pretty scary, given their past disastrous failures.
Thanks for a fascinating, entertaining, and frightening read! Much to chew on. Wish you had a definite answer as to what is going to happen. I need certainty!
I am going to take a couple days to read over the whole essay (book?). So far it's splendidly written and provides many good thinking points. But a few days is necessary to digest all of it carefully.
May I advise that for future similarly lengthy essays you break it into several shorter essays and release them across a week?
That was an amazing overview of our current international situation. I have no qualms or caveats, simply praise. Thank you.
Perhaps you have succumbed to the Beltway propaganda-induced hubris. Your analysis of the military action thus far is facile and one-sided. If you weren't largely basing your analysis on Russia's performance that wouldn't matter, but if you are trying to get into Xi's head you might want a more thorough understanding of what you are talking about, as I sincerely doubt Xi relies solely on western intelligence, as you appear to. The western strategy is claimed to be to weaken Russia through extended conflict, while at the same time admitting that NATO is not in a position to win a war against Russia currently. I wonder what Xi makes of that? I wonder what we Americans ought to make of that? Washington's exuberance might be a tad irrational after all.
May I remind you that the "special military operation" is conducted as such because under Russian law a declaration of war would be necessary to fully deploy the Russian military. This is why the troop numbers in Ukraine are so low. The activity around Kiev was not an attempt at taking that city, rather it was a feint to keep Ukrainian forces engaged there while positions in the east were solidified. All the gleeful western chatter about Russia's dashed expectations are just nonsense. Yes, Russia made mistakes, but they've been rectified and their performance has vastly improved. Without direct intervention from the west Russia will win this war. May I also remind you of all the weapons Russia has lately displayed which were previously unseen by the west, and against which the west obviously has no defensive capabilities as yet.
The truth matters here because while the number you provide for Russian casualties seems highly inflated, you don't mention Ukrainian losses at all, which are coming close to 10% of their entire armed forces. What will the west do when they have run out of Ukrainians with which to fight Russia? At some point NATO will have to enter the battle, the same NATO that recently admitted they can't win. The latest scuttlebutt is that the west is supportive of Poland moving troops into western Ukraine while the Romanians are planning to invade Transnistria to help Ukraine maintain access to the Black Sea at Odessa. These operations have already started and troops and equipment are being put in place currently. Sounds like a world war to me. It seems that the most likely outcome is your last choice: global chaos.
Perhaps the saddest thing about this tragedy is that it was entirely avoidable. If the US had not spent billions to turn Ukraine into a nationalist extremist anti-Russian entity that country would be at peace and many thousands of people would still be alive today. The current political situation in Ukraine has a very complex and interesting history. You should learn about it to fully understand exactly what you are lauding when you praise their troops. You should probably learn a bit more about Russian history while you are at it, so you better understand the peril we face here. After reading this analysis I must admit I have lost a great deal of respect for your analytic capabilities; this is quite a disappointing effort.
Bravo! Geopolitical analysis, mythological referents and wry humour in one wonderfully extended package. And it's not even my birthday!
Please do carry on, this is tremendous.
Thank you for this incredibly thoughtful and thorough synthesis.
Wow, what an amazing overview. What alot of work you have invested in this. thank you very much for sharing. I loved some of the humour - "Suddenly China finds itself alone at the bar. Russia has stumbled off to drunkenly instigate a street fight and lose most of its teeth, and Europa has gone home with the obnoxious middle-aged Yankee in the muscle shirt and overbearing cologne" had me on the floor!
After reading this, I don't want to miss any of your future posts and decided to subscribe. It's weighty (no pun intended, haha!) and important, and I like how you weave all the parts of the analysis together... And, in the end, arrive at a point of inescapable uncertainty at what are truly conclusion-defying times indeed. Many valuable insights along the way, anyhow, and a provocative and daring approach that certainly deserves praise.
Although I often disagree with you, this was the post that intrigued me enough to subscribe.
Wow. That was the most honest assessment of the proxy war in Ukraine I have read. Impressive.
My first thought is, mix Ukrainian Nazi's flush with victory and increased hatred of Russians, with these guys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3pnFR7DeZA&feature=emb_title (From TKNews, Matt Orfalea's take on warmongers), and we might expect far greater atrocities against Russians than what we have seen so far. Overshoot of triumphal viciousness will not reflect well.
The Trans-Atlantis regime will depend too on keeping a total lockdown on any discussion whatever of Covid Policy and the aftermath. That could become increasingly difficult, when it is the PMC protectors of our elite who are most likely to be harmed by over-vaccination.
Also if we are going to have to accept a Trans takeover of women's sports, and sexualizing of pre-schoolers, and minority social climbers weaponizing race and gender to cancel all their enemies including fellow "progressives", I doubt most people are going to be sanguine about that.
Also, once people figure out that a digital currency would mean technocratic-defined limits on meat, alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, TV time, media choices etc....
Also when we will be expected to line up for our bi-monthly multi-boosters....
And once they start sanctioning American States, or even counties or cities and individuals for wrongthink, that American spirit to be left alone might find it's footing again.
Wow! Quite a piece. This is why I subscribe. It will be interesting to revisit it in 10 years and see how you did. I have only one question:
"A wise leadership elite would go out of its way to avoid antagonizing internal cultural conflicts. But of course we know (because they’ve already started) that they are instead intent on pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor on every possible issue"
How do you mean they are "pushing the accelerator to the floor" in stoking cultural conflicts? It seems to me they are doing the exact opposite (what you prescribe they rationally "should" do), attempting to force conformity across all cultural dimensions.
Thank you - I read to the end over the course of the day and am sending it to my husband. I think the summarization is - it's a big freaking mess. And we are led by the worst possible combination of ideologues and total incompetents at the moment, so I suspect "worse case scenario" is where we land. I don't know that the US can stay united in the face of these scenarios, though - here in the South, and I suspect other red states, frustration and anger is already VERY high. I work in Uganda, where the people are getting absolutely clobbered by prices and supply issues, while China has basically taken ownership of huge swathes of the country including the airport in Entebbe thanks to handing over big loans with patently untenable payment plans resulting in default. (And corruption by the government, which goes without saying.) It's a scary time.
I would like to raise an issue for all of the commenters who have disagreed with Lyons' interpretation of how the war is evolving in Ukraine. He states "For weeks now I have noticed a strange reluctance among some in the West (as least among my fellow let's just say "deeply disillusioned with the establishment observers to accept the reality of this."
Largely because of my own long disillusionment with the establishment (on all levels) I noticed a powerful emotional impulse within me as this war began to want to root for a Russian victory in Ukraine in order to give the U.S. national security apparatus, what I felt, was a well-deserved black eye.
Does anyone else feel that such an impulse has played a significant role in how they tend to view this war?
9.8 out of 10 - even the East German judge gives you an 8.5...the only sad part about this is more people won't read it - thanks man.
There is I'm sure some good stuff on China which I might get back to but you so completely misread or you accept the Western media narrative of the current conflict that I can't get past it at the moment and it clouds the rest of the piece. What a pity. Your work has been well thought through and interesting. It is hardly my role to put you right although some researching online would soon show you different perspectives and some hard and often unpleasant facts but I will highlight your second hand personalisation of all that takes place to Putin, your liberal reinterpretation of the clearly expressed aims of Russia, your buying the story of some Battle of Kyiv/Kiev that never took place and your failure to go earlier than the March date in understanding anything of why this happened. It is not some grand Peter the Great plan in Putin's head unless you have evidence of that (beyond US State Dept projection). If anything Putin is criticised internally for not being sufficiently hawkish.
Were you aware of the Donbas conflict since 2014 that has taken 14k lives? - Russian Ukrainian lives taken by Ukrainians through bedded down artillery (which escalated in late Feb). Bandera and the several n a z i groupings meshed into govt and army? Euromaidan? Biolabs? Buruma? Minsk accords? The massing of Ukraine forces on the line of contact signalling imminent invasion of Donbas? Russian military strategy as distinct from the American kind? 'Gas for roubles' and its implications? I could tell you. Or you could research it. I know you are a China focused but since your article rests on questionable foundations it makes all your evident hard work a bit moot. If nothing else, please be more alert to how we are under constant propaganda bombardment and demonstrate some effort to rise above it. Sorry to say this.
This is a truly exciting intellectual synthesis! It’s a breathtaking meld of pretty much everything—geopolitical, economic, cultural, psycho-social—that’s happening in the world right now. In the grandness of its scope, it’s like Marx. How you tie everything together—the possibly rosy aspects of Trans-Atlantis in the first part of the essay, to the absolutely chilling possibility of a universal woke totalitarian hegemony in the second is an awesome intellectual achievement, like being a grandmaster of three-dimensional chess. But, Niall Ferguson pointed out this week in The Good Fellows podcast, that the real reason the Soviet Union lost the Cold War is because it couldn’t make computers. Similarly, China, despite its superior emphasis on STEM education, cannot make its own advanced microchips, nor a COVID-19 vaccine equal to ours. Innovation cannot flourish in totalitarian cultures, which is why I think that a totalitarian hegemonic Trans-Atlantis, if it unfolds as you suggest, would quickly stagnate. And, an hegemony that doesn’t successfully marry Virtual AND Physical, is inherently anti-fragile. Being a pessimist, I tend to think your description of chaos is apt. Even if Trans-Atlantis flourished for awhile, I tend to think that chaos would happen sooner rather than later. Also, if the general mood of the foreign policy establishment in Washington, aka The Blob, is “giddy”, THAT is pretty scary, given their past disastrous failures.
Thanks for a fascinating, entertaining, and frightening read! Much to chew on. Wish you had a definite answer as to what is going to happen. I need certainty!
I am going to take a couple days to read over the whole essay (book?). So far it's splendidly written and provides many good thinking points. But a few days is necessary to digest all of it carefully.
May I advise that for future similarly lengthy essays you break it into several shorter essays and release them across a week?