Edit: after finishing the article I will say that Noah does a good job at highlighting that the unspoken dumb reason democracies may have been winning is America being a democracy and being a huge/rich country.
This advantage has now erroded with China being the first nondemocratic economic superpower.
The one annoying thing about the analysis is he uses a lot of examples from 2 main cases:
Isreal (which he admits is not a traditional liberal democracy) and which has historically done extremly well in military conflicts because it is a hyper industrialized society. Its like say all german states are good at war and then only talking about Prussia.
Ukraine (which annoys me much more) since he seems to equate Ukraine holding a stalemate/arguably losing slowly=winning. Forgeting that Ukriane has been forced onto the defensive and fighting with the significant handicap of being outgunned by the Russians by degrees in a variety of different areas. From the number of artillery shells being 2:1 against them, to Russia maintaing enough of an air edge to make use of glide bombs against Ukrainian positions. This in spite of Ukraine being supported by an economic block that in theory outwieghs Russia+China combined. This is due to both uniquely American failures (a schizophthenic policy that even under Biden couldn’t properly articulate what it wants to happen in the war and to follow through) and European failures (a bureaucratic ossification that doesn’t allow for quick shifts in how money is spent to respond to a crisis).
There is a real chance (but not a guarentee I pray) Ukraine might lose in a catastrophic way in the next few years which would challenge his whole anaylsis. It is silly to use ongoing wars in his analysis. Especially when the pattern from the last few humiliations has been a really strong showing out of the gate for the democracies faccilitated by our great officer corps being wasted by a political elite unable to coherently formulate and stick to strategic goals.
WAGRAMWAGRAM on
He’s dumb if he thinks so. They fail at all parts of war starting with having no long term strategy.
Golda_M on
So… this is kind of a blender.
I think it would be better take the argument at its strongest, and take it from there.
I do think what was once the free world alliance has had a long period of underperformace.
It’s not about battlefield performance, necessarily. It about doing geopolitics successfully. The West has been hapless. Dragged around by half-comitted ideological notions.
You have to consider how many advantages Europe has (including US alliance) compared to Russia. Performance is judged relative to resources. Ukraine performed well, considering their resources. Europe did not. Is not.
Imo Afghanistan is the failure model. The actual “state building” strategy was an intricate ideological compromise. Despite clearly failing… the strategy wasn’t changed. Field commanders were reassigned missions they knew would fail, and the ones who played with the charade became generals.
Imo, pushing of the two state solution for palestine by the west are another example. It’s all about ideological notions. No room for feasibility. No thought to strategy.. what it would take to achieve success. No consideration of what actually happens on the ground.
Pushing forward with strategies expected to fail, because of ideological taste. Choosing and backing the option that doesn’t exist… because it is easiest to support ideologically. That’s how you loose.
4 Comments
> I am not a military analyst or expert.
Yeah, we figured.
Recent evidence has been…disappointingly lacking
Edit: after finishing the article I will say that Noah does a good job at highlighting that the unspoken dumb reason democracies may have been winning is America being a democracy and being a huge/rich country.
This advantage has now erroded with China being the first nondemocratic economic superpower.
The one annoying thing about the analysis is he uses a lot of examples from 2 main cases:
Isreal (which he admits is not a traditional liberal democracy) and which has historically done extremly well in military conflicts because it is a hyper industrialized society. Its like say all german states are good at war and then only talking about Prussia.
Ukraine (which annoys me much more) since he seems to equate Ukraine holding a stalemate/arguably losing slowly=winning. Forgeting that Ukriane has been forced onto the defensive and fighting with the significant handicap of being outgunned by the Russians by degrees in a variety of different areas. From the number of artillery shells being 2:1 against them, to Russia maintaing enough of an air edge to make use of glide bombs against Ukrainian positions. This in spite of Ukraine being supported by an economic block that in theory outwieghs Russia+China combined. This is due to both uniquely American failures (a schizophthenic policy that even under Biden couldn’t properly articulate what it wants to happen in the war and to follow through) and European failures (a bureaucratic ossification that doesn’t allow for quick shifts in how money is spent to respond to a crisis).
There is a real chance (but not a guarentee I pray) Ukraine might lose in a catastrophic way in the next few years which would challenge his whole anaylsis. It is silly to use ongoing wars in his analysis. Especially when the pattern from the last few humiliations has been a really strong showing out of the gate for the democracies faccilitated by our great officer corps being wasted by a political elite unable to coherently formulate and stick to strategic goals.
He’s dumb if he thinks so. They fail at all parts of war starting with having no long term strategy.
So… this is kind of a blender.
I think it would be better take the argument at its strongest, and take it from there.
I do think what was once the free world alliance has had a long period of underperformace.
It’s not about battlefield performance, necessarily. It about doing geopolitics successfully. The West has been hapless. Dragged around by half-comitted ideological notions.
You have to consider how many advantages Europe has (including US alliance) compared to Russia. Performance is judged relative to resources. Ukraine performed well, considering their resources. Europe did not. Is not.
Imo Afghanistan is the failure model. The actual “state building” strategy was an intricate ideological compromise. Despite clearly failing… the strategy wasn’t changed. Field commanders were reassigned missions they knew would fail, and the ones who played with the charade became generals.
Imo, pushing of the two state solution for palestine by the west are another example. It’s all about ideological notions. No room for feasibility. No thought to strategy.. what it would take to achieve success. No consideration of what actually happens on the ground.
Pushing forward with strategies expected to fail, because of ideological taste. Choosing and backing the option that doesn’t exist… because it is easiest to support ideologically. That’s how you loose.