Spot on. So much truth in a 500-word article, and often the truth is painful:
“the US, who have basically frittered away their unique period of dominance in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War.“
Fair enough but what did the West fritter away? What should they have done? Expand NATO to further box Russia in? Prop up dictatorships in Africa and Asia to limit Chinese influence?
What they should have done is not treated Russia as if it were still in the Cold War all these years…had they done the opposite it’s likely that we would not be facing this now.
One possibility: Make NATO fold up its tents in 1991. It’s mission was, in the words of the first general secretary of NATO, something to the effect of “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Done! But, after 1991 we got self-interested mission creep.
Some folks would argue that NATO should have extended membership to … Russia! Interesting idea, but it requires development. Here’s some development: NATO Membership for Everyone! If Administrative Process can achieve peace between nations, then open membership to everyone. Were it only so easy. https://dvwilliamson.substack.com/p/nato-membership-for-everyone
Last edited 2 years ago by Chauncey Gardiner
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
I guess that every day Putin looks in the mirror and sees a hero, a person who helps Russia to stay strong in world when the West is getting weaker and weaker. Putin cannot withdraw; he can’t suddenly change into a nice guy (= weakling). So the only answer is for him to be ‘removed’ by his own people.
Then a mark 2 appears. He – must be a ‘he’, a ‘she’ would be weak and a ‘they’ would be silly – He seems much more conciliatory but is just the same as Putin. Let us call him Pitun. Pitun, can get lots of advantages by being a peace-bringer, saving the world from conflict, letting everyone get back to peaceful discussions of gender.
Meanwhile, Xi knows what further preparations he has to make to allow him to take Taiwan without destroying China. His preparations may take ten years but China will invade Taiwan. People in Taiwan must be shaking now.
Such a macho hero in fact that Putin cowers away in fear of covid!! It is rather easy to be heroic with other people’s lives! There is no inevitability about whether China will invade Taiwan. For example, it is possible to ultimately threaten it with nuclear annihilation. As JFK was willing to do with the Soviets. Why is it that we assume our adversaries might well do this, but the West can not? It depends on whether the US – and the many nations who have every reason to be very suspicious of China, have the political and moral will to resist. They may well not, but nothing is inevitable.
You show a somewhat patronising attitude to Taiwan, as of course many of us did the Ukrainians. I have spoken to several Taiwanese people, and in fact they are very used to Chinese threats, and not ‘shaking’. It would be a tragedy for Taiwan, which has developed into a vibrant democratic state, to go under. It would also be extraordinarily self-defeating as well; why would any other Asian nation have any faith at all in the West if that happened?
Didn’t the party which supported a better relationship with China have a sizeable minority in the last Taiwanese election? Encouraging that is the way China will go rather than waging war on a fellow population.
John Murray
2 years ago
If the Russians want to end up as a vassal state to China, eh, wouldn’t be the first time Moscow made tribute to a Great Khan east of the Urals.
Definitely agree about the US (and by extension the West) frittering away its period of dominance. Utter bloody decadence. Time to shape up.
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago
There is little doubt that the US was hubristic and picked the wrong fights with the wrong enemies in the 1990s at a time it was completely unchallenged. Although we should always beware of the clarity of 20:20 hindsight! Afghanistan probably could never have become in hundreds of years a liberal democracy, Ukraine perhaps could have.
Major powers have made major strategic errors before and recovered; Prussia at the time of Napoleon, Germany after the First World War (unfortunately), Russia after the Crimean and Russo-Japanese wars, and of course China itself in more recent decades. Let us not forget that the US military was tiny at the start of the Second World War and how rapidly it turned that around once it had to /made a decision to do so.
But so far, despite so many people writing off the West, the reaction to Putin’s outrageous aggression has been quite impressive. I just don’t like this world-weary defeatism, which of course served the West so very well between the wars.
This stuff is so very fashionable; as once was the inevitable supersession of the US by Japan. China is of course larger and more formidable than Japan, but it nonetheless has great weaknesses, not least the inevitable problems of centralised control, an increasing demand for servility among its own population, and suspicion of its own Tech sector. It is still outnumbered and outgunned by its opponents overall. And the US is extraordinarily innovative; this kind of analysis tends to be of the ‘fixed cake’, zero sum variety. Even China’s population gap with the US is narrowing and its population becoming significantly older than that of the US.
Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
David McKee
2 years ago
Mr. Auerback’s recent post on Unherd (https://unherd.com/2021/12/the-west-must-stay-out-of-ukraine/) portrayed Russia as a victim, not an aggressor. His post (above) must be read in that light.
His facts are open to question. Reuters claims SWIFT processes $5-6 trillion each day (https://www.reuters.com/article/china-banks-clearing-idUSL3N2F115E), not the $400bn claimed by Mr. Auerback. CIPS is a perfectly viable alternative payment system – provided you want to settle up in yuan rather than dollars. At present, only around 2% of the world’s transactions are in yuan, so the CIPS won’t displace SWIFT anytime soon.
Paul Walsh
2 years ago
I am not really convinced by this. I guess time will tell, but my council isn’t really that efficient, I doubt the Chinese government is any better.
Christopher Barclay
2 years ago
The US can emerge with gains from the war in Ukraine. European expenditure on its own defence will almost certainly rise. This means that the US will spend less on NATO, allowing the US to spend more on military operations in Asia.
Western Europe is broke – we trashed our economies and public finances to “fight Covid”. We can’t feed ourselves, we are not energy independent, and we rely on sophisticated markets for our exports. Without cheap and reliable Russian gas, we have no energy, no fertilisers, no feedstock for chemicals and plastics.
One could argue that it has always been broken. If weren’t for the U.S. and GB throughout the 20th century, German would be the sole language of the continent today.
Spot on. So much truth in a 500-word article, and often the truth is painful:
“the US, who have basically frittered away their unique period of dominance in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War.“
Fair enough but what did the West fritter away? What should they have done? Expand NATO to further box Russia in? Prop up dictatorships in Africa and Asia to limit Chinese influence?
What they should have done is not treated Russia as if it were still in the Cold War all these years…had they done the opposite it’s likely that we would not be facing this now.
One possibility: Make NATO fold up its tents in 1991. It’s mission was, in the words of the first general secretary of NATO, something to the effect of “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Done! But, after 1991 we got self-interested mission creep.
Some folks would argue that NATO should have extended membership to … Russia! Interesting idea, but it requires development. Here’s some development:
NATO Membership for Everyone!
If Administrative Process can achieve peace between nations, then open membership to everyone. Were it only so easy.
https://dvwilliamson.substack.com/p/nato-membership-for-everyone
I guess that every day Putin looks in the mirror and sees a hero, a person who helps Russia to stay strong in world when the West is getting weaker and weaker. Putin cannot withdraw; he can’t suddenly change into a nice guy (= weakling). So the only answer is for him to be ‘removed’ by his own people.
Then a mark 2 appears. He – must be a ‘he’, a ‘she’ would be weak and a ‘they’ would be silly – He seems much more conciliatory but is just the same as Putin. Let us call him Pitun. Pitun, can get lots of advantages by being a peace-bringer, saving the world from conflict, letting everyone get back to peaceful discussions of gender.
Meanwhile, Xi knows what further preparations he has to make to allow him to take Taiwan without destroying China. His preparations may take ten years but China will invade Taiwan. People in Taiwan must be shaking now.
Such a macho hero in fact that Putin cowers away in fear of covid!! It is rather easy to be heroic with other people’s lives!
There is no inevitability about whether China will invade Taiwan. For example, it is possible to ultimately threaten it with nuclear annihilation. As JFK was willing to do with the Soviets. Why is it that we assume our adversaries might well do this, but the West can not? It depends on whether the US – and the many nations who have every reason to be very suspicious of China, have the political and moral will to resist. They may well not, but nothing is inevitable.
You show a somewhat patronising attitude to Taiwan, as of course many of us did the Ukrainians. I have spoken to several Taiwanese people, and in fact they are very used to Chinese threats, and not ‘shaking’. It would be a tragedy for Taiwan, which has developed into a vibrant democratic state, to go under. It would also be extraordinarily self-defeating as well; why would any other Asian nation have any faith at all in the West if that happened?
Didn’t the party which supported a better relationship with China have a sizeable minority in the last Taiwanese election? Encouraging that is the way China will go rather than waging war on a fellow population.
If the Russians want to end up as a vassal state to China, eh, wouldn’t be the first time Moscow made tribute to a Great Khan east of the Urals.
Definitely agree about the US (and by extension the West) frittering away its period of dominance. Utter bloody decadence. Time to shape up.
There is little doubt that the US was hubristic and picked the wrong fights with the wrong enemies in the 1990s at a time it was completely unchallenged. Although we should always beware of the clarity of 20:20 hindsight! Afghanistan probably could never have become in hundreds of years a liberal democracy, Ukraine perhaps could have.
Major powers have made major strategic errors before and recovered; Prussia at the time of Napoleon, Germany after the First World War (unfortunately), Russia after the Crimean and Russo-Japanese wars, and of course China itself in more recent decades. Let us not forget that the US military was tiny at the start of the Second World War and how rapidly it turned that around once it had to /made a decision to do so.
But so far, despite so many people writing off the West, the reaction to Putin’s outrageous aggression has been quite impressive. I just don’t like this world-weary defeatism, which of course served the West so very well between the wars.
This stuff is so very fashionable; as once was the inevitable supersession of the US by Japan. China is of course larger and more formidable than Japan, but it nonetheless has great weaknesses, not least the inevitable problems of centralised control, an increasing demand for servility among its own population, and suspicion of its own Tech sector. It is still outnumbered and outgunned by its opponents overall. And the US is extraordinarily innovative; this kind of analysis tends to be of the ‘fixed cake’, zero sum variety. Even China’s population gap with the US is narrowing and its population becoming significantly older than that of the US.
Mr. Auerback’s recent post on Unherd (https://unherd.com/2021/12/the-west-must-stay-out-of-ukraine/) portrayed Russia as a victim, not an aggressor. His post (above) must be read in that light.
His facts are open to question. Reuters claims SWIFT processes $5-6 trillion each day (https://www.reuters.com/article/china-banks-clearing-idUSL3N2F115E), not the $400bn claimed by Mr. Auerback. CIPS is a perfectly viable alternative payment system – provided you want to settle up in yuan rather than dollars. At present, only around 2% of the world’s transactions are in yuan, so the CIPS won’t displace SWIFT anytime soon.
I am not really convinced by this. I guess time will tell, but my council isn’t really that efficient, I doubt the Chinese government is any better.
The US can emerge with gains from the war in Ukraine. European expenditure on its own defence will almost certainly rise. This means that the US will spend less on NATO, allowing the US to spend more on military operations in Asia.
Unless Russia
Western Europe is broke – we trashed our economies and public finances to “fight Covid”. We can’t feed ourselves, we are not energy independent, and we rely on sophisticated markets for our exports. Without cheap and reliable Russian gas, we have no energy, no fertilisers, no feedstock for chemicals and plastics.
One could argue that it has always been broken. If weren’t for the U.S. and GB throughout the 20th century, German would be the sole language of the continent today.
Sounds like the plan that Trump had in mind. Go figure.