this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Death to NATO
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This whole narrative has to have been pure bullshit, right? The West had been arming Ukraine since 2014, Merkel even admitted the Minsk II agreements were just stalling for that purpose, and if you sell Ukraine as this hopelessly outmatched smol bean that's certainly doomed, it's easier to rally public support when it "somehow" beats all odds to hang in the fight. It's classic setting expectations at zero so anything looks like success, and fits with how often the media has ran with the "full scale" descriptor of the Russian invasion.
War is unpredictable. Ukraine is outmatched but defenders advantage goes a long way. Total defeat of Ukraine's military in the field wouldn't be achievable in 72 hours but it was still possible for a surrender to have occurred in that timespan if the chips landed the right way. While they definitely do exaggerate their predictions for several strategic reasons (budgetary, propaganda, cointel) the element of simply preparing for the worst case scenario is probably still the primary reason and no analyst gets gets their name dragged in the mud for having urged too much caution.
So finally there is is, the long awaited source for the all time favourite liberal bullshit that Kiev will fall in 3 days. And of course it was a projection too since it was said by US general, not Russian.
I think the Belarusian president had a similar statement, too, but that's still not Russia.
They definitely could have won much faster if they went for carpet-bombing (as they thankfully understood they should not have done), as they are still easily among the strongest air forces on the planet.
Possibly, Luka does sometimes like to exaggerate to push a point
Yeah, but now this is the canon in the west that has to be incorporated into any future narratives.
"Predicted to Congress" really just means "made some shit up to get everyone on board with a proxy war". That said, the supply of weapons and money from the USA and EU has artificially prolonged the war so it has taken a lot longer than it otherwise would have. Now that the supply of weapons and money is starting to dry up, you can already see how quickly things are deteriorating because Ukraine doesn't have the ability to sustain their losses on their own. Not to mention how close a peace deal was back in 2022 before the USA and UK stepped in to scuttle it.
Ukraine is hopelessly outmatched and is doomed. It basically has been since the beginning. The question was really only ever one of how long it would take and how many Ukrainians would die in the process.
Colin Powel Shining
Also how badly Russia would be hurt in the process, which is worth mentioning since it's the only the the west cares about here.
I think there might honestly be a case to be made that a fast end to the war would have been better for the west. Because now, Russia has a military full of soldiers who are veterans at fighting against NATO hardware and tactics, and a military industrial complex in high gear that can source all the parts it needs without being affected by USA/EU sanctions. Not that it's all sunshine and roses for Russia of course, but the USA failed to inflict any mortal wounds and now Russia is far better prepared to resist NATO in the future.
Not to mention, of course, all the other bad side effects on USA hegemony of NATO's ineptitude being put on display for the entire world.
The prolonged sanctions fiasco also did more to end western economic hegemony than it did to hurt Russia.
I think you could argue the sanctions kinda helped Russia in a sense, last I heard their economy is up and they have less dollars dependence, more economic options,
One of the most important changes is in the re-industrialization of Russia.
Before the sanctions, Russia was comfortable with being a resource extraction colony of the West, where low labor-intensive mining and extraction industries enabled an accumulation of wealth which enriched their bourgeois class, but did not lead to the proletarianization of the working class, as value-added goods were simply imported from abroad rather than manufacturing their own.
Now, with all the sanctions, Russia is being forced to develop and relying on its own industries (import substitution) to replace the loss of Western goods. This re-industrialization is significant because it will lead to increasing proletarianization of the working class - the pre-conditions for the growth of socialist movements.
There is a reason why Western countries were so keen on de-industrializing themselves, not only because of the dominance of finance capital, but because they no longer have to deal with labor movements at home. The consequence of this is the fragmentation and dissolution of genuine left wing movements across the advanced Western countries.
Proletarianization is the transformation of members of a society into proletarians. You seem to be implying that you think modern Russia has a substantial portion of its population in the peasantry, which is not my understanding. Urban industrial proletarians are not the only proletarians.
I realize I should have used “re-proletarianization” instead.
Marx defined the proletariat class as uniquely revolutionary because unlike slaves in antiquity whose exploitation was tied to being enslaved by their owners/masters, and serfs in the feudal era where their exploitation was tied to land, the proletariat class that emerged out of industrialization were free wage laborers whose exploitation was tied to production, which is what the capitalist class needed to make their profit.
The industrialization of the society made the price of labor goes up, and directly strengthened the bargaining power of the labor movement. This contradiction is what would lead to the overthrow of the bourgeois class.
Neoliberal economies are different from industrial capitalism in the sense that the exploitation of the working class is now tied to debt, which is why it is often equated as a regression towards neo-feudalism or neo-rentier economy. The finance capitalist class doesn’t care about the improving productive capacity, they only need to pay enough for the workers to service their debt while keeping them in perpetual debt peonage.
This is why the revolutionary potential of the working class in Western neoliberal economies is so low. In Russia’s case, it’s still more industrialized than financialized, but the mining/extraction industry allowed wealth to be accumulated without a strong participation of labor.
Good point -- no better way to pitch funding a war than "defeat is imminent unless you give me unlimited cash right now"