Venture Capital rarely creates trends - it follows them, and arguably amplifies them. In the case of rising conflicts around the world, it makes sense for VCs to allocate parts of their funds towards defense. Does that mean they have an interest in prolonging war like this article claims? No - quite the opposite:
War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked. This cannot be stressed enough. It's a lesson that has unfortunately been lost on the isolationist movement around the world that believes that cutting funding for the defense of Ukraine or diplomatic efforts towards the Huthis will create less war.
War is avoided if one party is so strong that an attack is futile. You can add other layers of war avoidance on top of that, such as close trade and political relationships, cultural exchange, open communication and ultimately friendship and alliances, but the backbone always has to be strength. The Romans knew this when they said "Si vis pacem, para bellum", and its just as true today.
Creating this strength happens through cultural readiness and technological innovation - and unfortunately, that's where the West has a massive problem. Almost eighty years without an existential threat, paired with ever growing governments and lobbying has created a defense purchasing situation in which ever more enormous contracts are awarded to ever smaller numbers of giant companies.
And the structure of these contracts, such as Cost-Plus that pay for whatever the contractee spends plus a fixed margin on top creates incentives that discourages innovation and efficiency.
We should be grateful that finally startups and VCs are overcoming their reflexive aversion against anything defense and start innovating. The startup ecosystem has been the best engine for innovation we have and finally turning it towards defense might help strengthen the west's place in the world and be a major contributor to lasting peace.
>War is avoided if one party is so strong that an attack is futile.
Did you mean to write 'if both parties are so strong an attack is futile'? A stronger party can always attack a weaker party if it feels it has more to gain than lose by doing so. The US was briefly the only party in a position to do that, but there's clearly an interest by regional powers to expand their territory. I see the invasion of Ukraine as an excellent example of that.
In that light, supporting an insurgency against economic rivals seems like a pretty decent strategy - done well it can make the cost of invading a weaker rival unpalatable on all sides, without contributing to the praetorian guard problem.
The trouble I think becomes, it's possible to pull the smaller party's backers into a situation where it can be an avenue to wage economic war against them. The petrodollar is essentially over at this point, in large part because of how the Ukraine war shaped out. Supporting the smaller side in an asymmetric war is traditionally more capital efficient than being the larger party, but that isn't obviously the case in Ukraine. I'm definitely watching this space.
I think that's a fair correction - and its true that the Ukraine war has shattered a lot of assumption about western involvement in asymmetric conflict.
On-paper military strength is often not decisive. The Viet-Cong and the Taliban showed they had a stronger will to fight than the US, despite their lopsided military inferiority. Usually that applies more in a defensive context, but not always.
> War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked [..]
"in war, truth is the first casualty. It is typically accompanied by a fog of official lies. And no such fog has ever been as thick as in the Ukraine war. While many hundreds of thousands of people have fought and died in Ukraine, the propaganda machines in Brussels, Kyiv, London, Moscow and Washington have worked overtime to ensure that we take passionate sides, believe what we want to believe, and condemn anyone who questions the narrative we have internalised. The consequences for all have been dire. For Ukraine, they have been catastrophic [..]
the war was born in and has been continued due to miscalculations by all sides. The United States calculated that Russian threats to go to war over Ukrainian neutrality were bluffs that might be deterred by outlining and denigrating Russian plans. Russia assumed that the United States would prefer negotiations to war and would wish to avoid the redivision of Europe into hostile blocs. Ukrainians counted on the West protecting their country. When Russia’s performance in the first months of the war proved lacklustre, the West concluded that Ukraine could defeat it. None of these calculations has proved correct"[0]
Hindsight is 20-20 but war is chaotic. The support for Ukraine has been half-assed at best. Strategically it was insane to let Russia build fortifications for six months uncontested.
“The United States calculated that Russian threats to go to war over Ukrainian neutrality were bluff”
I want to push back in that. The war in eukraine is (was?) arguably the desired end result of many years of effort by a number of Ukraine/russia hawks like Nuland. I don’t think she was surprised at all by Russia’s actions. It was on everyone’s bingo card. It had been predicted (described?) by prominent experts like John mearshiemer. It was very much a known risk, and a likely risk as anyone can go and assess from historical records.
So no, the United States (whomever you mean by that) certainly did not calculate that Putin would be unprovokeable. Russia’s red line was clear, we chose to cross it knowing the result ahead of time.
> War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked.
Citation needed. Besides what does it even mean? Is weakness on one part a necessary or a sufficient condition for war, or is it meant in some other sense?
It’s a bit tautological. In order for you to prevail you must be stronger than your opponent in one or more critical areas. If you think you can win then you believe to know the weakness of your opponent.
Depending on your morals the causation here could easily be turned: once you see what you believe to be a weak opponent, you go for the win.
I thought meaning was pretty clear in OP but I can't understand what you're saying/asking. Perceived weakness entices aggressors of course, unless you think it's normal that states are picking fights they know they will lose. Rather than asking for citations of simple logical conclusions it might be better to try and throw out your idea of decent counterexamples.
Like, you might say Hamas isn't fighting because of perceived weakness, and in a sense they know they will lose. You can explain this in the perceived weakness framework only if the real war is a PR war where you hope to get allies for the shooting war.
At some level Japan knew it would lose to the US in WW2, but the alternative of effectively surrender was too unpalatable to consider. Here's the analysis by a US Army historian:
I've heard that Yamamoto believed Japan could not win, but felt duty bound to serve anyway after it became clear the fight would happen with or without him. He seemed to also understand Pearl harbor would incite and not crush fighting spirit. First I've heard that leadership in general could have believed they would lose the fight they were starting. But politicians are weird, and I guess many of them would rather lose (elections, wars) rather than lose control (of parties, or countries). This has it's own kind of perverted logic but political thinking isn't military thinking
You can’t really distinguish the two in this case, Tojo ran a military dictatorship and moderate politicians had been murdered to make way. We shouldn’t disregard the role racist ideology played, but that paper shows how the likelihood of honorable defeat was deemed preferable to ignominious surrender in Japan, and how ignorance of Japanese culture led the US to miscalculate when it imposed an oil embargo on the Japanese.
No idea what you're getting at. If you admit this is pure logic and we don't need to look at the world then why ask for citations? If you have no faith in logic and also don't want to look at the world, what could anyone cite anyway? Honestly not sure how you think anyone can know anything
Here is an example of how people in the military making policy decisions think about it[1]. This guy in particular worked as national security advisor.
My take is that it comes from nations avoiding war if they don’t think they can win anything from it. Weakness simply means you cannot stop the enemy from accomplishing their goals. Weakness is definitely not sufficient or necessary. Instead it is the perception of weakness from one party (accurate or not) that may incite violence. A better one liner would be “weakness is provocative”.
War happens for a variety of reasons, the relative strength of the parties involved is just one factor. Plenty of actors have attacked a clearly stronger party. I think this article does a decent job of outlining some of the reasons war can occur.
The level of bias in that article is unreal and I feel hopeful it is more West Point analysts pushing propaganda than being ignorant. That was a lot of ink spilled trying to ignore why Russia might have felt the need to invade Ukraine before the two sentence grudging admission that Ukraine was arming up and aligning with Europe (cough the US) and maybe that was noticed by the Russians. Even though of course that wasn't really a factor, Blattman assures us.
Empathy is a useful offensive tool. He's not wrong that all the other factors were at play, but any analysis really has to admit that there would have to be a lot of fear of whether the US was going to stay peaceful as the noose kept tightening around Russia. Dismissing that without benefit of hindsight on what is going on in the Kremlin right now is foolish.
The Soviet Union was definitely an existential threat - not just to the US but to any country with liberal values.
Germany attacked its largest trading partner, France. More than once. People do not always act rationally or in their best interests. This is why deterrence is important. Rational people don't want to fight wars.
The recent forever wars are driven by neocon thinking. Neocons are statists (people who believe the state has the best interests of the people and are the best solvers of problems) who extend domestic agenda to international agenda. Hence, Iraq limited war (Bush I) gets turned into a project to rebuild Iraq into a western liberal democracy (Bush II). Afghanistan grows from a successful special operation to a futile state rebuilding exercise.
When you're the only super power, the way adversaries beat you is by getting you to punch yourself in the face by over reacting, acting out of pride, or giving in to fear.
To be fair, in WW2 Germany did not attack France - it attacked Poland, and expected that France would not keep its alliance and give it up just as they folded on Sudatenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia, but France did attack Germany over that; and arguably if the German expectations about French/British reaction turned out to be true, then annexing Poland would be in their best interest according to what was beneficial for states in early 20th century (now the economic incentives have substantially changed).
"[..] gets turned into a project to rebuild Iraq into a western liberal democracy [..]"
It's like the third time in a week that I read this nonsense somewhere.
Obviously,Iraq was not invaded "to bring democracy".
Also there is the assumption that the people that make this decisions care at all about democracy, you get to kill half a million people and still be the good guys:
"See? we bombed them because we wanted to bring democracy, too bad they were not ready for it. Maybe it was a mistake but done with the best of intentions!"
Sun Tzu has the right idea, he recommends only attacking if you're 6 times the strength of the other side. Less than that and it's too risky (defenders have a lot of inherent advantages).
So if the different sides are somewhat evenly balanced, it's not in anyone's interests to to on the offensive. Offensives only happen if one side (perceives themselves to be) much stronger than their opponent.
Nice explanation, and the contradiction kind of blows away. Or does it? Strength everywhere seems to guarantee peace, but only on certain time scales. It's like playing go, where one should not throw oneself at strength. Yet turn by turn, the board shrinks, and conflict is inevitable. Perhaps strength does kind of tend to minimize the total amount and duration of conflict though
Does the real world have this "shrinking turn-by-turn" mechanic though? It seems to keep expanding, if anything. There are more people, more things, more resources, more complexity each year. That's where the risk is coming from: new sources of power supplanting the old ones.
There's not more territory in any meaningful sense though, and without territory there are no resources. Consider the WW2 era German interest in lebensraum, the Japanese interest in the northern resource region of Siberia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantokuen ). Since WW2, in theory borders are supposed to be basically frozen and war is technically illegal, but clearly Russia would like to annex something extra. More subtly there are all the soft-power machinations or straight up proxy wars that are energy/resource related, and typically wherever one great power has influence they'll try to freeze out others. Looking forward further, there's only one moon, one solar system..
> ...turning it towards defense might help strengthen the west's place in the world and be a major contributor to lasting peace.
Power differential doesn't lead to peace but more oppression and injustice; or rather, might is right based world order. The West isn't immune to corruption from power, nor its democratic institutions immune to consenting to atrocious crimes in their name. You'd appreciate that such power has often meant peace at home and mayhem abroad.
> Almost eighty years without an existential threat
Unsure why everything has to be viewed through a dystopian lens; presume the far worse from others but think of themselves as holier than Jesus Christ. Drumming up threats feels almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The new globalised world order demands co-existence and not pursuing the next Loch Ness monster.
> War is avoided if one party is so strong that an attack is futile.
Not really. You avoid true wars when both parties could inflict disproportionate damage on each other (exceptions exist, but they're not the rule). Guerrilla warfare and terrorism is a response to that power imbalance.
> Does that mean they have an interest in prolonging war like this article claims?
Anyone part of the military industrial complex has every incentive to agitate for war. Those 100x returns won't show up if there's no use for all that tech.
> Venture Capital rarely creates trends - it follows them, and arguably amplifies them
Re: "War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked."
You're almost there.
Now just integrate 1) industrial complexes that form via a handful of greedy-psychopathic individuals who lobby politicians into "power" to help with regulatory capture, and 2) authoritarian types who become or are groomed to become politicians in positions of "power" - of control of policy decisions - which are the two sides of the fascism coin.
Next integrate theatre, manufactured consent, propaganda and manufactured war - where bad actors on "both sides" simply want to maintain control and be able to pillage the resources (and rape and murder as they please) of their land - and so they come to a "gentlemen's" agreement behind closed doors where they promise to leave their upper hierarchy alone - but destroy
It's divide and conquer, distract and conquer; perhaps with a sprinkling of cloak and dagger, bait and switch, and other idioms may be fitting.
Who benefits in this scenario? The military industrial complex, most certainly, other industrial complexes, but more so the tyrants and tyrant wannabes.
The tyrants want a sick and weakened population so that they can't be held accountable, are less of a resistance against their blindly indoctrinated militaries - or outright genocidal militaries who over many decades to many generations have fomented a hate for a specific group - where they see them as less than human, and therefore anything against them is justified; such falsehoods always being believed by a very thin veil of many shallow-thin threads of propaganda narrative talking points - manifesting into reality simply by repeating the points, keeping the mind's attention enough and filling in enough logic to make most undeveloped-stunted minds feel like it's solid enough, and therefore a truthful reality; with the indoctrinated ideologue not critically thinking through each point, rather they are emotionally knee-jerk reactive and already have been trained what the counterargument to blurt out, to parrot, is - quick, easily memorable one liners.
There of course will be useful targets that the dominant cohort-coalition of tyrants - the establishment division as I call them, globalist elites as others do - perhaps obvious dictators or tyrants in their land, however they aren't toeing the line of the dominant group - and therefore that tyrant going it alone is a threat to the "power" - of the coalition's wet dream of world domination and a global totalitarian state;
Russia is likely being used as a wedge, and Palestine now as well - both with the potential to ignite WW3. However fear mongering with climate alarmism appears to be their fallback plan they're moving forward with in parallel if they can't get the systems moving towards WW3. If successful then can draft and force anyone strong remaining into the meat grinder, so they are no longer a threat to local control and corruption.
Re: "... and unfortunately, that's where the West has a massive problem. Almost eighty years without an existential threat."
Once again almost there. A weakened population is easier to control, which is perhaps just a coincidence of industrial complexes maximizing profits - but it helps accelerate towards a fascist state. Placating the population, distracting them with entertainment, with low quality numbing foods, while squeezing as much quality of life out of them as possible by indoctrinating them into narrow educational channels; see book "The Unsettling of America: Culture “& Agriculture to understand what well-rounded, highly competent development and intelligence looks like.
“Commercial conquest is far more thorough and final than military defeat” - The Unsettling of America book.
Capture the means of production, the economic-monetary system, and then simply economically suffocate any resistance by via Social Credit score system and mechanisms, to turn off the tap down low enough for political dissidents-opposition-resistance to the tyranny; or for example only allow government positions say in a “free” public health care system, education, and military institutions — where you’re only given a salary from the government — cranking up costs of living for all of society, but if you have a government job — they can continue to print as much money as they need to fund and keep those toeing their line afloat while the general population is allowed to, if not pushed under faster, to drown.
It’s party to 5th generation - psychological - warfare where you want to do the most subtle things in order to not spook the herd, so that it doesn’t react and flee from you - or come after you for the valid threat that “you” are.
To add to your comment, I'll just note that critics of VCs (and capitalism in general) are unique in being dissatisfied with either outcome.
When they build businesses with presences in various countries, they claim that they are weakening a country by diffusing their power, making them reliant on other countries - which, if you think about it, reduces the possibility of war. At the same time, when they invest in a country's defense sector so that a country can defend itself against aggressors, they are simultaneously accused of inciting wars.
>As conflicts ignite around the world, dragging on in Ukraine while sparking off in the Middle East, venture capital is banking on defense.
This is a weird attack on VC.
War is inevitable. It's a Yin Yang thing. War is never meant to be won, but to be perpetual. You want to end the evils of war sooner then you can ever win it. That the spectrum of humanity means people will always be in want leading to war.
In my scifi book, I imagined a scenario where my main character has exclusive access to alien technology and can impose his will on Earth. He doesnt wish to be emperor but everyone is worried that he plans to be that. Instead he figures out the greatest hoax ever. He comes in, pretends to be the new emperor and says that using alien tech he will start immediately killing any and all people who commit violence.
Then he start streaming his progress. But its all holograms and fake names, his alien tech lasers are only doing nothing damage starting fires all over the world. But world peace happens for the first time.
But then he backs off quietly and world peace persists long enough in the fear of his alien tech. People start talking out their problems.
This is probably what it would take to solve the problem of war.
There is a chicken-and-egg problem here. VCs would presumably love defence contracts because government money is where it is at if you want to get wealthy without risking much.
However war is terrible for business. The reason governments handle defence is because capitalist free markets do not typically allocate much to weapons spending and would never attempt to fund a standing military like what the US government does. So I'd suggest that the root of the demand is coming from the political class and the VCs are responding to that.
It’s not if it’s somewhere far away and you’re only concerned with selling weapons. The Great Disarmament of the European states of 2022-2025(?) will secure contracts for the American industry for decades to come.
Selling weapons far away is less use to a capitalist than improving the society around them. Weapons someone gives you resources, so that is nice, but if you build something enduring for the same amount you get positive externalities as well from a rich society.
$1,000,000 in weapon sales is less useful for a business owner than $1,000,000 in building out, say, a good plumbing system. In the first case they get the million, but in the second case they also don't have to put up with as much disease in their local community. So the basic incentives here is not to put money into weapons unless demand is already there.
War is also excellent for business if it disrupts your competitors, and especially in liquid commodities where any shortage immediately bumps prices.
For the major oil exporters any conflict happening in countries involved in oil production or transportation is a benefit, as it greatly bumps their profits at the expense of the oil consuming countries. Arguably some of the conflicts in places like Syria or Libya have been worse than they 'should' have been simply because there's a large financial motivation to send money and weapons to simply stir up trouble so that the global oil price hikes upwards; a major oil producer doesn't even prefer one side of a conflict, it can simply send some weapons to everyone involved and profit because the country and their oil production gets disrupted.
For the major grain exporters, a war happening in Ukrainian wheat fields is a big boon as it raises global grain prices. There IMHO the other interests are even larger, so this is not the decisive factor, but it does add up to many billions worth of incentives that likely are taken into account.
Now on the other hand, disrupting global trade is pretty universally bad for business, so if somebody (e.g. Houthis) attempt that, then we can expect everyone powerful treating them as 'hostis humani generis' i.e. enemy of all mankind, as piracy has been addressed since Roman times.
When governments arent printing money to dump into military contracts and war-making they are doing it for green energy, and guess what vcs are chasing after. Vcs aren't the origin just the benefactors. If world peace was on the us bidget they'd be chasing after those dollars
No, they want peace. But you need to invest in defence if you want peace. Like how you need a well funded police if you want less crime in your neighbourhood. I believe the opposite - defund the police - has been tried recently in certain US cities with the predictable sad results.
I live in Eastern Europe, close to Ukraine. Never did I think that I would be pro-military complex until March 2022 but here we are.
Also San Francisco used to be one my favorite cities on Earth to visit. Never did I think that I would be pro-cop until quite recently but here we are again.
Military expenditure is more about being ready "just in case" than actually using the things you buy and showing of to others so they don't mess with you.
> Military expenditure is more about being ready "just in case"
A rule of thumb I've found to be useful is that if you make a weapon you'll find a use for it. Being ready "just in case" is some of the most homicidal thought patterns in history.
A great counter-example is nukes, but I suspect it's just a matter of time until one either accidentally fires or our insane assumption that states are rational actors collapses.
The last several decades says otherwise about nukes, to the point that I'm starting to believe that there are time travellers actively preventing any spark to go off.
...yea, too little, too late, in a highly ineffective manner. We're not going to consume our way out of climate change and that's all VCs are capable of doing. In fact our addiction to managing our society via consumption is very directly related to ongoing climate change.
You want to know what would actually look like addressing the problem? Paying poor countries to not build coal plants. Blowing up infrastructure. Etc. Reduction of emissions is the only thing that matters at this point.
> So that they can be replaced with cleaner power or just to bribe people into staying poor?
This is a straightforward wealth-transfer. It is up to the recipient to decide how they want to use it, but it should be noted this is attached to a statement to not build coal plants. Given the obvious correlation between energy production and economic productivity this should work out ok as well as delivering a long-overdue balancing of power among economically disparate peoples. The last effect is why I know this will not happen until it is too late (probably already).
> So that people starve to death?
That's coming regardless. Nonetheless, strategic targeting should avoid this.
You should probably stop reading whatever it is you're reading. Your thought process on this matter is bordering on zealotry. You just suggested destroying infrastructure, which you acknowledge will starve thousands of people to prevent climate change. When questioned on that, your response is that they will die anyway.
I am in general surprised and worried about the role media is playing in priming us for big military conflict. An unfortunate outcome of the collapse of Iron Curtain has in fact been the triumph of capitalism at the expense of freedom and democracy (which it could have been). This triumph of capitalism then set the foundations of returning the world to pre WWI tensions between great powers, which is exactly what is happening in Ukraine and Middle East, both of which are key gateways for flow of resources. I predict that soon there will be a big influx of wealthy families into places like South America due to its relative geographical safety from nuclear conflict. Part of me wishes that US and Russia resume testing of nuclear weapons just to remind people how terrible such weaponry really is.
> triumph of capitalism at the expense of freedom and democracy
As someone who was born on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, I can assure you capitalism, freedom and democracy came together while we had communism, lack of freedom and dictatorships.
> As someone who was born on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain
Why is there still a need to start responses in such a cliche manner. As someone who was also born there ... who cares
> I can assure you capitalism, freedom and democracy
Capitalism, freedom, and democracy are all seperate concepts. Capitalism seeks to maximize capital at the expense of labour time. Freedom mens nothing if you dont have the time (eaten up by labour) and capital to enjoy it. Democracy means nothing if you dont have time to be educated about policies you vote for (we have objective mass media for that). Anyway, if you want a more extreme example of freedom and democracy not equal capitalism just look at Russia and China
Most people spouting anti-capitalism rhetoric never even bothered to visit some of communism's success stories like Cuba or Venezuela, but how about living there?
> Capitalism, freedom, and democracy are all seperate concepts.
They come together. Capitalism gives you economic power and pulls you out of abject poverty. Together with free markets this gives you freedom. First freedom is to choose where you work and thus maximise your earning potential and free time. With free time you can educate yourself more, including about democracy.
I have seen this process happening in Eastern Europe with my own eyes when switching from communism, hunger and poverty to capitalism, freedom and eventual (relative) prosperity during the 90's.
None of this addresses my point that capitalism is bringing international relations to pre WWI levels between great (imperialist) powers and that we are on the cusp of being dragged into another World War for (ultimately) someone else's interests. But I can see you drank the kool-aid, so it is no use repeating myself.
This is an example of what I mean about education and democracy. In terms of history education and basic economics this is the same as flat earth theory in basic physics. Russia is absolutely not communist. In fact it is ranked higher than some western countries on some well known business rankings.
You have it backwards. It does not matter what regime russia has, it has the same imperialist mentality that wants to conquer neighboring countries and destabilize international relations.
Trying to pin international relationship destabilization to capitalism while actually it is being done by russia being greedy is the real lack of education or maybe even malice.
Wars for resources were happening long before Russia invaded Ukraine. What changed is that the US stopped being the only one doing it and Russia joined the party. Russia is a big problem for the US because it is very resource rich, and worse, it is resource rich at a time when other countries' resources are being depleted. It is also a big problem because there is a real risk that global warming will benefit Russia greatly. The big problem for the worlds' population is that in order to return the US as the only policeman in the world (ie only imperialist power) cannot happen without a nuclear war and people need to realize that there are plenty of cowboys who will risk such a scenario.
> Wars for resources were happening long before Russia invaded Ukraine. What changed is that the US stopped being the only one doing it and Russia joined the party.
So russia invaded Ukraine for resources?
> Russia is a big problem for the US because it is very resource rich
So russia needed to invade Ukraine why again? If it has all the resources.
> global warming will benefit Russia greatly.
I think this is a really simplistic and shortsighted view. The extremes will get worse and ecosystems that feed the people will collapse.
The US really messed up in Ukraine. They tried to sneak Ukraine into NATO which means granting US military access to Ukrainian territory. Only an idiot could have thought that this would go without a military answer from Russia. In fact, the US strategists probably predicted that Russia would react militarily. However, they probably didn't think that Russia would be so determined. Now the real problem is if Ukraine surrenders and accepts Russia's terms of strict military neutrality this would be devastating to the US global stature and the US powers will do everything to try to stop it including dragging the rest of Europe to war. That is my fear.
US was not in Ukraine. Ukraine was not in NATO is not in NATO.
Ukrainian people had finally had enough of the russian puppet yanukovich and kicked him out.
russia then used green men and later official army to illegaly invade Ukraine.
Also the afraid of NATO story is complete bunk as Finland has now joined NATO without any objections from russia DOUBLING the russia NATO border.
russia was aggressive during czarist times, russia was aggressive during soviet times, russia is aggressive now. Trying to blame any of it to others is just dumb and evil.
Actually Russia and Ukraine were about to sign a peace deal in exchange for neutrality in April 2022. This was torpedoed by the UK and the US. Similar thing happened in Bosnia in 1992.
On 18 March 1992, all three sides signed the agreement; Alija Izetbegović for the Bosniaks, Radovan Karadžić for the Bosnian Serbs and Mate Boban for the Bosnian Croats. On 28 March 1992, after a meeting with US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann in Sarajevo, Izetbegović withdrew his signature and declared his opposition to any division of Bosnia.
— Carrington–Cutileiro plan [Wikipedia]
I have no recollection of engaging in this topic previously, so I looked through your recent comments and see that you only engage in political threads (mainly Russia bashing), which is curious given that HN is a technical not a political forum. Are you a troll?
But it is a lie. Your own linked source says it too:
> When Moseichuk asked the party leader why Ukraine did not agree to the offer, the he stated that Ukraine "had no confidence" in the Russians since they were ready to promise anything for Ukraine to agree.
> "We could not sign something, step away, everyone would relax there, and then they would [invade] even more prepared – because they have, in fact, gone in unprepared for such a resistance," he said. "Therefore, we could only explore this route when there is absolute certainty that this will not happen again. There is no such certainty."
The story about Ukraine and Russia having reached a deal, only to be abandoned under Western pressure, is and remains a lie repeated by Russian propaganda machine with the goal of painting Ukrainians as warmongers while Russia keeps shooting missiles at Ukrainian cities.
> The story about Ukraine and Russia having reached a deal, only to be abandoned under Western pressure, is and remains a lie repeated by Russian propaganda machine
Lol. You sound like a communist party slogan maker who switched flags. t00l
> with the goal of painting Ukrainians as warmongers while Russia keeps shooting missiles at Ukrainian cities.
No buddy. Read what I'm writing. It's pretty simple. The US (and UK) and Russia are warmongers. Ukrainians are victims of BOTH. They are essentially fucked because their leadership is either Russian puppets (past) or US puppets (present). As of today Ukraine probably lost over half a MILLION soldiers. Soon combined losses of all warring parties will be over a million. It is VERY sad. Fuck war and anyone who wishes it. Goodbye
Only russia is the warmonger. russia attacked Ukraine. russian soldiers are the ones that kill Ukrainians. You want killing to end? Call for russia to get out of Ukraine.
Why do you keep pointing fingers at parties that have no say in ending the war? Nor starting it for the matter as well.
Also armistice negotiations in April 2022 failed because the horrific genocide, torture and rape that russians did in Bucha came to light. No US and UK involvement there at all.
> capitalism is bringing international relations to pre WWI levels
And how exactly does it do that?
Offering Eastern European countries too much freedom and prosperity and thus making thugs like Putin envious and hungry for conquest? Hmm maybe you have a point.
How exactly is capitalism seeking a monopoly on resources?
> TOO MUCH LOOOL
Absolutely. Eastern Europeans are now in the EU and we have freedom of movement, expression and to work anywhere we wish. During communism machine guns and barbed wire kept us locked down so we wouldn’t escape its wonders.
Financially we’ve never been better: our PIB is at an all time high and people enjoy Teslas and city breaks, ski vacations and shopping trips. Compare it to the 80's when we were cold, starving in lines for half a bread and a bottle of milk.
It’s night and day, you can’t even imagine it unless you’ve lived it . Of course all Eastern Europe (including Ukraine) vigorously rejects any closeness to Russia and its ilk. Of course an authoritarian like Putin was furious and did the only thing he could think of: war, murder and genocide.
> How exactly is capitalism seeking a monopoly on resources?
Why? To dictate the terms of the market. How? With military.
Moreover, it is a generally well known economic principle that capitalism entails cyclical crisis periods for self correction. Usual way to deal with it is debt and expansion of markets. Debt levels today are unprecedented while there are no significant new markets to expand into (China and Eastern Europe including Russia are already absorbed into the market). Raw materials (including fresh water and air) are more valuable than ever.
> Financially we’ve never been better: our PIB is at an all time high and people enjoy Teslas and city breaks, ski vacations and shopping trips. Compare it to the 80's when we were cold, starving in lines for half a bread and a bottle of milk.
Huge part of personal wealth in Eastern Europe is actually a relic of socialist times - housing. Eastern European countries have by far the highest rate of home ownership as a result of socialism. In the developed world, China is the leader of home ownership rates.
You do know that 80s were quite unpleasant everywhere? In the decades prior USSR was outperforming the US economically. Also Yugoslavia, a socialist country outside the Iron Curtain, had a better living standard than some countries in Western Europe prior to 1980s. This is actually quite an achivement given how devestated and underdeveloped the region was following WWII and no Marshal Plan to help.
Anyway, I actually live in Eastern Europe. It is a great place to live in, but it is not economically prosperous. A great majority of people certainly cannot afford things you list (I know many people who live 30 mins away from ski slopes but the majority can hardly afford ski passes) and live a very spartan lifestyle.
Russia also has plenty of rich people taking holidays and driving expensive cars, but a great majority of Russians certainly cannot afford those things. While we are at it, look at how many Chinese tourists there are. In most expensive Western cities (eg. Sydney) property purchases by Chinese have driven property prices up significantly.
But none of that means anything. Plenty of people from Eastern Europe still want to emigrate. Birth rates are decreasing every year because it is very hard for young families to purchase their own home (see for the situation in Poland [0]). And whats more, there are plenty of people that are still quite nostalgic for old times due to social security it provided (again see Poland [1]).
> Why? To dictate the terms of the market. How? With military.
This has nothing to do with capitalism. Any economic system can do that. But with free markets a fair price is reached and healthy competition encouraged. Of course most governments will create monopolies instead.
> generally well known economic principle
Do you have actual examples where this happened recently or are you just talking general ideas here?
> housing
Do you mean the gray long apartment blighting the cities across Eastern Europe? Ugly, unventilated and insulated and ready to fall at the first earthquake they would be simply illegal to build today. The only reason they still keep "their value" is that we managed to overregulated the housing market into an obvious supply-constrained corner.
> USSR was outperforming the US economically
USSR was starving. USA had to send grains to avoid starvation - Kansas became Russia's bread basket.
When the Berlin wall fell the stores in the East had empty shelves while the ones in the West presented the usual bonanza of products and options.
> A great majority of people certainly cannot afford things you list
Of course not everybody has everything. But the per-capita GDP is inching closer to the West while Purchasing Power will soon be at parity. Eastern Europe's growth rate after the fall of communism beat the West's.
> plenty of people that are still quite nostalgic
They are nostalgic for their youth. Plus they are retirees and their work created little economic value during communism so their pensions are appropriately limited.
Capitalism means competion, which means strong eat weak. If someone has what you need to survive, you eat them (figuratively speaking haha). On scale of state actors, this means war. Socialism, on the other hand, means rational and planned distribution of resources. I belive that slowly we are reaching that stage of culture as humans where we will collectively realize that this is the only way to survive without war famine etc, just as our relationship with nature and environment is beggining to take on forms of collective responsibility.
> Do you have actual examples where this happened recently or are you just talking general ideas here?
How about the GFC, which is still being felt today.
> Do you mean the gray long apartment blighting the cities across Eastern Europe? Ugly, unventilated and insulated and ready to fall at the first earthquake they would be simply illegal to build today. The only reason they still keep "their value" is that we managed to overregulated the housing market into an obvious supply-constrained corner.
While beauty is in the eye of the beholder (i personally find brutalist architecture aesthetically appealing), what you say about structural quality of socialist housing is very wrong. In fact, given the prevelance of reinforced concrete in socialist construction, structurally they are better and more earthquake resistant than many modern buildings. For socialist construction withstanding earthquakes see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Zagreb_earthquake
Anyway the point is, people in Eastern Europe can relax in ways that would make many people in the West jealous - ie they dont have to kiss their bosses' bums to pay off their mortgage and keep their homes. Or worst, kiss bank managers bums to get a home loan approved. Owning a home is as real a wealth as it comes.
> Eastern Europe's growth rate after the fall of communism beat the West's.
The economic growth rate of socialist block of countries was double that of the West, until 1980s. The difference being that socialist block excelled at heavy industry and strategic development. They had major problems with light industry (hence the shortages in convenience sotres). On the other hand, economic development in Eastern Europe today is driven largely by outsourcing of labour from the West, and many heavy industries had to be closed because Western bosses didn't want competition. The reason why companies from the West go to Eastern Europe has alot to do with the level of education of labour force in Eastern Europe. And guess what system is responsible for said levels of education ... :)
My belief is that socialism in eastern europe sucked big time. However to ignore some of its benefits is simply stupid. If we can learn well from history we are in a better place as humans to build a better world for all humans. Otherwise we will descend into war and barbarism, where we find ourselves at the moment. The key difference between the situation preceding WWI and today is the presence of nuclear weapons. Even trench warfare has made a comeback.
> They are nostalgic for their youth. Plus they are retirees and their work created little economic value during communism so their pensions are appropriately limited.
Maybe they also miss their generous anual leave, work rights, and 36 hour work week.
> Capitalism means competion, which means strong eat weak.
> Socialism, on the other hand, means rational and planned distribution of resources.
> reinforced concrete in socialist construction, structurally they are better and more earthquake resistant than many modern buildings.
> they dont have to kiss their bosses' bums to pay off their mortgage and keep their homes.
Are you out of your mind?
Have you actually lived under communism?
I grew up under soviet occupation and none of those things were even remotely true.
The party apparachiks ate the weak for breakfast, no rule of law, no fairness. As the saying goes: everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.
The quality of the concrete housing blocks is abysmal, there have been pretty bad collapses, the ventilation and insulation is nonexistent, it's a dreadful existence in them.
Availability of apartments was really bad, you had to wait in line for 10 years before you could get one. Then start fixing the flaws by yourself.
Wanted a zhiguli car? Wait in line for 5 years to get a permit to buy a car, then go to get it from some ass end corner of russia. After getting home, get few friends to pretty much disassemble the car to make sure that every bolt is actually tightened so the car would not disintegrate randomly.
As for kissing bosses asses, this was there even more. Bribes to get basics.
Wanted to get sausage, stand in line for a few hours only to find out that "it's run out, wink, wink, gimme a bottle of vodka and wait behind the shop, maybe I find some".
Yes, but are you just retelling stories you overheard?
> Availability of apartments was really bad, you had to wait in line for 10 years before you could get one. Then start fixing the flaws by yourself
The socialist countries were built on litteraly nothing, with a majority of population being illiterate. As developing countries they did very well. A fair comparison would actually be a country like Portugal or south Italy or even Greece. Waiting 10 years for an appartment is nothing, even by standards in the West. What is the average age of (loaned) property purchase in the West? What is the average age of loan repayment? In some advanced Western countries it is generation and a half.
> The party apparachiks ate the weak for breakfast, no rule of law, no fairness. As the saying goes: everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.
Hahaha and what do you think you have to do today in many Eastern European countries, just to get a stable job. Hahaha
All those "apparachiks" just changed sides and do the same shit under capitalism.
In my country (EU) this sort of curruption still exists. If you actually need to be told this then I very much doubt you live in Eastern Europe, let alone somewhere not-at-all-corrupt like Ukraine
Oh nice, good old kremlin brainwash again. Something that happened 70 years ago while also forgetting what russians did here at the same time, mass deportations, murder, rape justifies everything.
Actually we were the first to tell Russians to piss off [0]. But just like I wouldn't die for Russians, I wouldnt die for people that have a pathological hatred of them.
I think someone who keeps shilling for genocide, some fairyland version of communism and tries to gaslight people should maybe check whether pathology could be applicable for themselves.
Obviously being anti war cannot mean any of those things. I see that uncle Joe taught you well. If you disagree with someone accuse them of being a foreign agent. As usual, people like you are the same as the thing they proclaim to hate. Putin would be proud of you.
If you were anti-war you'd be anti-Russia. They are the ones waging war right now. The war would end tomorrow if Putin would get out of Ukraine. Ukraine would end tomorrow if Ukrainians would stop fighting.
I'm not anti-Russia. I think Russia is a great country and a great culture. However, I'm definitely anti-Putin and wish for this war to end ASAP, regardless of final terms for either party. I don't think that Ukranian oligarchs are any better than their Russian counterparts, and certainly not worth fighting/dying for.
So far the only ones waging war are old imperialist forces falling behind the West: Russia and its ilk.
> Socialism, on the other hand, means rational and planned distribution of resources.
Planned economy never worked, everywhere it was tried. It simply led to hunger.
> reinforced concrete
Except communist workers stole the cement and replaced it with sand. The concrete cracked and water got in the non-waterproofed foundations, rusting the rebars. A disaster waiting to happen.
> Zagreb earthquake
That was a 5.5 - baby earthquake. We'll see when there is a 7+.
> many heavy industries had to be closed because Western bosses
They closed down because they couldn't compete on the global free markets. Mostly they made stuff "planned" for the Warsaw treaty countries. Crap, of course.
> people in Eastern Europe can relax
We still have to pay taxes and utilities. The government makes sure there is no such thing as free ride.
> Owning a home is as real a wealth as it comes.
Personally I'd rather rent a nice place than own a crap-hole. I appreciate the freedom and lack of headaches when renting. For investment I prefer the stock market. Much better returns.
> The economic growth rate of socialist block of countries was double that of the West
Then why were the shelves empty and we starved?! The growth after WW2 came from looting nationalized private property. That lasted a few years and then they simply started fudging the numbers.
> Maybe they also miss their generous anual leave, work rights, and 36 hour work week
Till the 80s the work week around here had 56 hours, not 36.
But some of them do miss being a part of nomenklatura and kissing the ring of the Russian masters, that's for sure.
>> ready to fall at the first earthquake they would be simply illegal to build today
Counter example: Zagreb earthquake
> That was a 5.5 - baby earthquake. We'll see when there is a 7+.
That's called moving the goal posts. All buildings built in Zagreb during the socialist period withstood the 2020 Zagreb and Petrinja earthquakes without any damage. For what it's worth my building has a rating of 9 and it is built in the 70s.
> Till the 80s the work week around here had 56 hours, not 36.
> Personally I'd rather rent a nice place than own a crap-hole. I appreciate the freedom and lack of headaches when renting. For investment I prefer the stock market. Much better returns.
Be that as it may, these "crap holes" are a definite source of financial stability for a huge majority of people in Eastern Europe. Moreover, they are often refurbished into nice apartments, and sometimes even by Western foreigners. Where I live roh bau prices for these apartments begin at 3,000 eur per sqm.
I had thought about this. The way to address this is to take out (through competition) other businesses that the VC is involved in while also lobbying for policy changes that make it harder or less profitable for VC scum to profit from war.
Not necessarily. Investors make bets. So they want to be able to predict if a sector goes up or down. If it's up or down, it doesn't matter as they can make bets towards or against that sector.
Right now some investors think defense sector is on the rise, so they make their bets in that direction. Would have been otherwise, they would have been equally happy to short the defense companies. At which points someone would complain that "venture capitalists are destroying our defense industry".
> While Thiel says he won’t fund candidates in the 2024 race, he’s previously supported a slew of successful Republican congressional campaigns. And after stints as Chief Financial Officer for Thiel’s now-defunct Clarium Capital Management and Chief of Staff at Thiel Capital, Michael Kratsios took White House and Defense Department positions in the Trump administration, giving Thiel closer proximity to power.
Is there literally any reason this is here besides “republicans bad”?
Thiel isn't a Republican anymore. He's actually been a bit all over the place in the last two years. His most recent political position could be described possibly as "globofascist," though that term has obvious negative connotations.
Explains why previously dormant terrorists groups like Hamas and ISIS have suddenly been re-activated since Russia invaded Ukraine and why concerned world leaders keep making ridiculously reckless comments geared towards incitement of potential military conflict.
War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked. This cannot be stressed enough. It's a lesson that has unfortunately been lost on the isolationist movement around the world that believes that cutting funding for the defense of Ukraine or diplomatic efforts towards the Huthis will create less war.
War is avoided if one party is so strong that an attack is futile. You can add other layers of war avoidance on top of that, such as close trade and political relationships, cultural exchange, open communication and ultimately friendship and alliances, but the backbone always has to be strength. The Romans knew this when they said "Si vis pacem, para bellum", and its just as true today.
Creating this strength happens through cultural readiness and technological innovation - and unfortunately, that's where the West has a massive problem. Almost eighty years without an existential threat, paired with ever growing governments and lobbying has created a defense purchasing situation in which ever more enormous contracts are awarded to ever smaller numbers of giant companies.
And the structure of these contracts, such as Cost-Plus that pay for whatever the contractee spends plus a fixed margin on top creates incentives that discourages innovation and efficiency.
We should be grateful that finally startups and VCs are overcoming their reflexive aversion against anything defense and start innovating. The startup ecosystem has been the best engine for innovation we have and finally turning it towards defense might help strengthen the west's place in the world and be a major contributor to lasting peace.