Ukraine War

[WhatTheBuck 28781]

34 minutes ago, Nivek said:

How is this different from any other tyrannical leader?  

Drawing parallels is fine when it is appropriate.  It is not here.  Hitler and Putin are not alike in their motivations or actions.  I mean both were Surly manlets and wore pants so I guess a lot of you need to be watched.    Putin is purging people who question his motives and their dedication to his cause for subjugating Ukraine.  Once again, this is not a mass murder campaign where people were literally rounded up, had everything stolen from them (including the gold from their teeth) and put in gas chambers and then cremated in mass.    This argument is sophomoric at best.     

I’d say the argument that you can’t compare anyone to Hitler unless they’re killing masses of people in gas chambers and incinerating them is sophomoric at best. Hitler and Putin are very much alike in their motivations and actions. How is Putin’s annexation of the Donbas different than Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland? How is their propagandizing different? Putin doesn’t have the superiority of arms to wage blitzkrieg on Ukraine like Hitler had to take over much of Europe, but he thought he did and he tried. Mark Twain said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Just because all fascists aren’t alike doesn’t mean one can’t be compared to another. 

[WhatTheBuck 28781]

4 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

Saddam's war with Iran was much worse (for both sides) - guess who we supported.

Both sides.

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

8 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Both sides.

the Iran-Contra, a minor data blip, gets a lot of media hype but the US-Iraq military assistance was much more solid even to the extent of destroying and killing Iranian navy targets. Iraq even accidentally blasted a missile at a US navy ship, killing 35 sailors, but was forgiven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_War#:~:text=Security Council in 2002%2C almost,LA Weekly in May 2003.

I hadn't seen this pic before until reading the wiki. Tariq Aziz was a POW and died in an Iraqi prison. 

 

 

neverthless, the point was that Ukraine isn't the killing zone of other conflicts in the last 75-100 years, not even close really. 

[956 Worldwide 34714]

28 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

this Ukraine war doesn't come close to the mass murder of 10% of the 1980s Afghan population by the 10 year Soviet invasion, far worse than Ukraine will ever get.  Saddam's war with Iran was much worse (for both sides) - guess who we supported.  Nothing will resemble WW2 / Holocaust but a few in the last 100 years are in the ballpark -- Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia.  Ukraine isn't as bad as the ones mentioned; refugees in the others didn't have the luxury of internet or nice trains to depart the country with food, clothing and shelter readily available within hours. The USSR planted tens of thousands of landmines in Afghanistan to blow up and maim families as they walked across the desert for days, pure hell for a people who already lived in a brutal landscape.  Forgot to mention Syria which is a ghoulish indescribable madness. So no, Ukraine is luxury compared to other situations. 

I don’t understand this take at all.  I mean, as of five days ago 2,500 people are dead in three weeks in Mariupol alone. That is a fucking World War II style horror show, like “early siege of Leningrad before the food ran out” bad. And it might yet get to “running out of food” bad.  Comparing it to ten year conflicts is absurd. 
 

This is the biggest refugee wave in Europe since World War II. I was in one of the welcome centers in SE Poland, which is amazing and Ukrainians are deeply grateful.  There’s no luxury there, there are a lot of people with dead relatives and grocery sacks full of their belongings. Having a SIM card is nice though bro. 

[RomaVicta 29907]

I think our obsession with equating every opponent with Hitler and nattering on about relative evil is detrimental to evaluating our involvement in an armed conflict. Now reflected in our super-hero comic book movie culture, we're obsessed with making every conflict a battle between good and evil to save the world. 

Just stop.

Putin's rating on the Hitler scale is irrelevant to discussion about American policy. We don't fight our wars since Hitler for the same reasons we fought Hitler. Our leaders just use that model (with the dull minded press usually tagging along) to drum up support for whatever hidden reason (useful or not) they have for wanting to "send our boys in to kill the bad guys."

Guess what? We were the bad guys in Vietnam. To most of Iraq, we were the bad guys in Iraq. Same in Afghanistan. Does anyone who has read a paragraph of history think we invaded Grenada to save third rate medical students? Did Nicaragua love the Contras? Was Chile glad we orchstrated the removal and murder of Allende? 

Hey man, who even knows about that shit anymore?

Exactly. Tally-ho, after the wicked fox!

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

29 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I don’t understand this take at all.  I mean, as of five days ago 2,500 people are dead in three weeks in Mariupol alone. That is a fucking World War II style horror show, like “early siege of Leningrad before the food ran out” bad. And it might yet get to “running out of food” bad.  Comparing it to ten year conflicts is absurd. 
 

This is the biggest refugee wave in Europe since World War II. I was in one of the welcome centers in SE Poland, which is amazing and Ukrainians are deeply grateful.  There’s no luxury there, there are a lot of people with dead relatives and grocery sacks full of their belongings. Having a SIM card is nice though bro. 

well that's a comparison to a 6 year horror show. 

Ukraine isn't as bad as the other wars lists, Syria by itself is much more of a horror show with 500,000 killed - ISIS, Al Qaeda, the murderous Assad army, Israel, Hezbollah and more.  Snipers shoot little boys in the spine just for fun.  Fanatics behead just for entertainment. It's panic time every day over there without the goodie packages from American housemoms. 

[Hagbard Celine 10864]

4 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

He is not Hitler if only because he is incapable of being Hitler. He doesn't have the resources -- human or natural -- to fight against NATO. To me, nationalistic fervor within Russia is immaterial if they don't have the clout to match. He does not have superior tanks or airplanes. He has not developed a new set of tactics on the order of the blitzkrieg. In fact, he is basically still using cumbersome blitzkrieg tactics now, and is paying the consequences. With NATO air support, their levels of attrition would approach that of the Krauts at Stalingrad or the Iraqis on the highway of death. (This argument that Ukraine is just a speed bump to empire reminds me more and more of how Saddam was allegedly going to blaze through Kuwait and take down Saudi.)

I did not mean to imply he has the lost the war. It does seem to me like a Pyrrhic victory, in that they have been exposed as a paper tiger. He will win this fight but the underdog caught him under the chin and put him on the canvas for a three-count. 

hitler with hitler's resources and in-game position: no

hitler without the resources and a totally different in-game position: yes

saddam with nukes..... sort of, but totally with you on the speed bump to empire.   make vlad bash his head against the uke brick wall for as long as possible.  starve his economy and people.  an asymmetric siege of attrition like this situation has never happened before.  this is 100x more severe than the federal blockade of the south in the civil war or the battle of the atlantic in ww2, the only 2 similar circumstances in world history that come to mind.

his only cards in reserve are chem or nukes, so there is no reason (other than the humanitarian disaster) to do anything different for at least 60 days and re-assess.

[Hagbard Celine 10864]

3 hours ago, Tuco said:

{Meant to quote thatguys “intensive purposes”, but fucked it up. }
It’s “intents and purposes”

don't you even intensively surl, bro?

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

I hope and pray this is not a jinx, but this is the least shit-showy CR thread in quite awhile. Carry on, gentleman and lady. (Unless there is more than one.)

[Biff Tannen 45683]

[Nivek 16928]

4 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I’d say the argument that you can’t compare anyone to Hitler unless they’re killing masses of people in gas chambers and incinerating them is sophomoric at best. Hitler and Putin are very much alike in their motivations and actions. How is Putin’s annexation of the Donbas different than Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland? How is their propagandizing different? Putin doesn’t have the superiority of arms to wage blitzkrieg on Ukraine like Hitler had to take over much of Europe, but he thought he did and he tried. Mark Twain said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Just because all fascists aren’t alike doesn’t mean one can’t be compared to another. 

You can say that but you would be wrong.   The idea of making a comparison is to find things in which are alike in specific manners and not in some coarse generalized methodology.   As I stated above all mass murderers in recent years have worn pants.   So I suppose anyone that wears pants is a potential mass murderer?  Well that is absurd if you are honest (and I think you are).   The idea that a Hitler is one who uses the machinations of government to do his bidding, is true for everyone in government.  So by that standard, George Washington and Hitler are the same.    So such criteria is simply foolish, you are not a fool but you are a bit stubborn and do not like to be challenged and shown wrong.   

Going into specifics which shows some similarities doesn't necessarily work as well.  Alexander expanded the Macedonian state through conquest and Hitler expanded his state through conquest.  So does this criteria mean they are the same?    No?  Well then this criteria fails as well.   Shit, countries use propaganda?  I suppose then the Kims of North Korea are the same as the United States in the 1940s.  I mean watch some old ww2 Bugs Bunny cartoons and you will see propaganda aimed at kids in there as well.  

Let me offer you a good comparison instead.  If you wanted to compare grossular vs. pyrope then this would be something worth discussing because they are similar in form and structure, and represent endmember garnets.  They share so many similarities they are considered part of the garnet group.   What you are doing is saying that because they are aluminum-silicates they are comparable to Kyanite which is an aluminum-silicate, but not recognized to be in the same category and exists on its own phase diagrams and has a different chemical formula.   If you wanted to group Kyanite to Sillimanite, then you would be correct as they are part of the AL2SiO5 polymorphs, but unrelated to the Mg3Al2(SiO4)3 Pyrope (garnets).   Well I suppose they are both shiny.  

If you wanted to suggest that Hitler and Putin both have police-states  and both are brutal in oppressing their own people and others, well this is accurate.  One was more competent in supporting and building up the military machine than the other, both have goals for conquest but Hitler's is far grander, and it was obvious by the debt financed restoration of the military whereas Putin is more of a kleptocrat who is more interested in his own power.   Hitler wanted to eradicate all Jewish and Roma populations from Europe.  He worked to this end and succeeded in mass murder.  Putin is interested in restoring the Soviet Union's influence, but he is not willing to actually make the financial sacrifices to do such.  He is far too fucking lazy to do this.  He got a lesson in 2017 about how inferior his forces were to the United States.    He had plenty of time invest in the Russian armed forces, ramp up production of newer equipment, sell off the the shit and get his troops in order through professionalism.   He is simply not interested in putting in the effort and money, but rather surrounding himself with buddies and wearing 11,000 euro italian jackets.   Hitler getting a mercedes was a minor controversy in Germany.     Also the interwar period between WW1 and WW2 was dedicated to learning and analyzing WW1 and developing new decentralized tactics, where they conducted realistic maneuvers to test their new doctrine which was happening before Hitler took power.   Hitler's invasion of Austria was a learning point and the German military recognized there were failures up and down and so they adapted to this before they went into Czech.  Throughout the whole process they kept analyzing their actions adapting their strategies and becoming more effective.     Now look at Putin's military, they are using substandard equipment, sending in people whom have little knowledge, using old tactics, failures a logistics, and according to one youtuber ex-infantry guy, they appear to be following old soviet doctrine.  

TLDR: So this is a lot of words to basically say that it is a shit comparison.  

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Nivek

[Nivek 16928]

25 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I hope and pray this is not a jinx, but this is the least shit-showy CR thread in quite awhile. Carry on, gentleman and lady. (Unless there is more than one.)

yeah, well fuck you.

(j/k)

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20398]

Putin's Folly  ... excellent article from The Economist

 

Spoiler

About the author: Brian Klaas is a global-politics professor at University College London, a weekly columnist for The Washington Post, and the host of the Power Corrupts podcast. He is the author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us.

 

 

In the span of a couple of weeks, Vladimir Putin—a man recently described by Donald Trump as a strategic “genius”—managed to revitalize NATO, unify a splintered West, turn Ukraine’s little-known president into a global hero, wreck Russia’s economy, and solidify his legacy as a murderous war criminal.

How did he miscalculate so badly?

To answer that question, you have to understand the power and information ecosystems around dictators. I’ve studied and interviewed despots across the globe for more than a decade. In my research, I’ve persistently encountered a stubborn myth—of the savvy strongman, the rational, calculating despot who can play the long game because he (and it’s typically a he) doesn’t have to worry about pesky polls or angry voters. Our elected leaders, this view suggests, are no match for the tyrant who gazes into the next decade rather than fretting about next year’s election.

Reality doesn’t conform to that rosy theory.

Autocrats such as Putin eventually succumb to what may be called the “dictator trap.” The strategies they use to stay in power tend to trigger their eventual downfall. Rather than being long-term planners, many make catastrophic short-term errors—the kinds of errors that would likely have been avoided in democratic systems. They hear only from sycophants, and get bad advice. They misunderstand their population. They don’t see threats coming until it’s too late. And unlike elected leaders who leave office to riches, book tours, and the glitzy lifestyle of a statesman, many dictators who miscalculate leave office in a casket, a possibility that makes them even more likely to double down.

Despots sow the seeds of their own demise early on, when they first face the trade-off between allowing freedom of expression and maintaining an iron grip on power. After arriving in the palace, crushing dissent and jailing opponents is often rational, from the perspective of a dictator: It creates a culture of fear that is useful for establishing and maintaining control. But that culture of fear comes with a cost.

For those of us living in liberal democracies, criticizing the boss is risky, but we’re not going to be shipped off to a gulag or watch our family get tortured. In authoritarian regimes, those all-too-real risks have a way of focusing the mind. Is it ever worthwhile for authoritarian advisers to speak truth to power?

As a result, despots rarely get told that their stupid ideas are stupid, or that their ill-conceived wars are likely to be catastrophic. Offering honest criticism is a deadly game and most advisers avoid doing so. Those who dare to gamble eventually lose and are purged. So over time, the advisers who remain are usually yes-men who act like bobbleheads, nodding along when the despot outlines some crackpot scheme.

Even with such seemingly loyal cronies, despots face a dilemma. How can you trust the loyalty of an entourage that has every reason to lie and conceal its true thoughts? The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophon wrote of that inescapable paradox of tyranny: “It is never possible for the tyrant to trust that he is loved … and plots against tyrants spring from none more than from those who pretend to love them most.”

To solve this problem, despots create loyalty tests, ghoulish charades to separate true believers from pretenders. To be trusted, advisers must lie on behalf of the regime. Those who repeat absurd claims without blinking are deemed loyal. Anyone who hesitates is considered suspect.

In Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, for example, the lies have gotten progressively more ridiculous. Once a lie becomes widely accepted, the value of that individual loyalty test declines. Once everyone knows that Kim Jong Un learned to drive when he was just 3 years old, a new, more extreme lie must emerge for the test to serve its purpose. The cycle repeats itself, and a cult of personality is born.

Plenty of people around Putin understood that dynamic, which is why they were willing to parrot Putin’s outlandish claim that the Jewish president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, is presiding over a “neo-Nazi” state. (Such mythmaking can happen in democracies too, if you have an authoritarian-style leader. Just consider how many Republicans have fallen over one another to endorse Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election in order to prove their MAGA bona fides.)

But to stay in power, despots have to worry about more than just their advisers and cronies. They have to win over, intimidate, or coerce their population too. That’s why dictators invest in state-sponsored media. In Russia, the state goes so far as to present fake presidential candidates who pretend to oppose Putin in rigged elections. The whole system is a Potemkin village, an illusion of choice and political debate.

Again, that mechanism of control comes with a cost. Some citizens brainwashed by state propaganda will support a war that is sure to backfire. Others privately oppose the regime, but will be too afraid to say anything. As a result, reliable polling doesn’t exist in autocracies. (Russia is no exception.) That means that despots like Putin are unable to accurately understand the attitudes of their own people.

If you live in a fake world long enough, it can start to feel real. Dictators and despots begin to believe their own lies, repeated back at them and propagated by state-controlled media. That might help explain why Putin’s recent speeches have stood out as unhinged rants. It’s certainly possible that his mind has succumbed to his own propaganda, creating a warped worldview in which the invasion of Ukraine was, as Trump put it, an incredibly “savvy” move.

The risks of miscalculation are compounded, psychology research has shown, by the fact that power literally goes to your head, including in a key way that may be relevant in explaining Putin’s costly gambit in Ukraine. The longer someone is in power, the more they begin to get a sense of what is known as “illusory control,” a mistaken belief that they can control outcomes much more than they actually can. That delusion is particularly dangerous in dictatorships, in which there are virtually no checks or balances, no term limits or free elections to boot someone from power.

Some Russia experts, such as Fiona Hill, have recently suggested that Putin has spent much of the pandemic isolated and alone, poring over old maps of the lost Russian “imperium.” Cumulatively, it’s possible to imagine how these factors combined to convince Putin that his brutal blunder in Ukraine was a good idea.

When despots screw up, they need to watch their own back. Yet again, they can become victims of the dictator trap. To crush prospective enemies, they must demand loyalty and crack down on criticism. But the more they do so, the lower the quality of information they receive, and the less they can trust the people who purport to serve them. As a result, even when government officials learn about plots to overthrow an autocrat, they may not share that knowledge. This is known as the “vacuum effect”—and it means that authoritarian presidents might learn of coup attempts and putsches only when it’s too late. This raises a question that should keep Putin awake at night: If the oligarchs were to eventually make a move against him, would anyone warn him?

Clearly, Putin is no fool. But as we debate possible endgames to the war in Ukraine, we shouldn’t kid ourselves. Putin, like many despots, isn’t behaving fully rationally. He inhabits a fantasy world, surrounded by people who are afraid to challenge him, with a mind that has been poisoned by more than two decades as a tyrant. He’s made a catastrophic mistake in Ukraine—one that may yet prove his downfall.

Democracy isn’t perfect. It’s messy. It can be shortsighted. Many powerful democracies, including the United States, are dysfunctional. But at least our leaders face real constraints, real pushback for their miscalculations, and real criticism from their population. And, crucially, there’s a built-in mechanism to replace our leaders when they start to behave irrationally or irresponsibly.

That’s why it’s time to jettison the myth of the “savvy” strongman, or the dictator who’s a geopolitical “genius.” Putin has fallen victim to the dictator trap and proved that he is neither.

 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20398]

18 hours ago, brakeman said:

 

 

LOL.

Wow, that's gonna sting.

Holy shit. HOLY MUTHERFUCKING SHIT.   The size of the cojones on those guys is unreal, knowing what may happen to them when they land and also what may happen to their families while they're in orbit. 

[Bullneck 19088]

14 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Holy shit. HOLY MUTHERFUCKING SHIT.   The size of the cojones on those guys is unreal, knowing what may happen to them when they land and also what may happen to their families while they're in orbit. 

I was thinking about that, too.  I'd hope that they're too big of a deal for Putin to mess with, but who am I kidding.  Maybe they don't come back down for another year and they figure he'll be gone by then.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20398]

1 minute ago, Bullneck said:

I was thinking about that, too.  I'd hope that they're too big of a deal for Putin to mess with, but who am I kidding.  Maybe they don't come back down for another year and they figure he'll be gone by then.

I just read that these are the colors of Moscow State Technical University and that all three cosmonauts graduated from there and that they all have a MSTU patch on their jumpsuits, that the suits were made months ago etc...  Meaning it's just a coincidence.

[Goredho 17405]

4 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

I think our obsession with equating every opponent with Hitler and nattering on about relative evil is detrimental to evaluating our involvement in an armed conflict. Now reflected in our super-hero comic book movie culture, we're obsessed with making every conflict a battle between good and evil to save the world. 

Just stop.

Putin's rating on the Hitler scale is irrelevant to discussion about American policy. We don't fight our wars since Hitler for the same reasons we fought Hitler. Our leaders just use that model (with the dull minded press usually tagging along) to drum up support for whatever hidden reason (useful or not) they have for wanting to "send our boys in to kill the bad guys."

Guess what? We were the bad guys in Vietnam. To most of Iraq, we were the bad guys in Iraq. Same in Afghanistan. Does anyone who has read a paragraph of history think we invaded Grenada to save third rate medical students? Did Nicaragua love the Contras? Was Chile glad we orchstrated the removal and murder of Allende? 

Hey man, who even knows about that shit anymore?

Exactly. Tally-ho, after the wicked fox!

That’s one of the nice things about this conflict between Russia and the Ukraine.  It’s pretty fucking crystal clear who the asshole is.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20398]

4 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

I think our obsession with equating every opponent with Hitler and nattering on about relative evil

 

 

[Neonmoon 38129]

I think I’ve seen this movie before 

[SizzleChest 8283]

1 hour ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Holy shit. HOLY MUTHERFUCKING SHIT.   The size of the cojones on those guys is unreal, knowing what may happen to them when they land and also what may happen to their families while they're in orbit. 

Calculated move.  Basically, they're taking the risk that Pooty will get iced or exiled before any of them set foot on Earth again.  Families are probably safe, otherwise I seriously doubt they would have done that.

Edited March 19, 2022 by SizzleChest

[Thatguy 8699]

    What makes this war different is the lack of a DP by the Nazis and Soviets to start things off and our(the west) quick aid.  If not for the West throwing in immediately with lethal aid Russia is planning their next invasion. It's too early to say "Putin doesn't have the military" when he is sitting on nukes. The rhetoric and propaganda is the same.

[Caponata 151]

 

 

[Tuco 5076]

Putin's Folly  ... excellent article from The…
 

Related, I think dictators miss the crucial role the free press has in Quality Assurance. Remember how the Bradley fighting vehicle? Generals and defense contractors can cover that up. But one fucking journalism major can expose the flaws and improve the military. Despots might hate that, but the alternative is the tragic joke that is the Russian military with their 20 year old MREs.

[RomaVicta 29907]

3 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

 

 

Was FDR Hitler for moving Japanese Americans into concentration camps?

Your form of argument would seem to argue so. My position does not. Neither FDR or Putin are Hitler. Nor is Putin FDR. 

It's like arguing about how many Todesengels can dance on the head of a pin. Further, a nation sometimes puts up with evil or even supports it in what it perceives to be its own interests. We're a nation that does that. Sometimes it's the best if not right thing to do.

It's not a schoolyard out there.

[WhatTheBuck 28781]

3 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

I just read that these are the colors of Moscow State Technical University and that all three cosmonauts graduated from there and that they all have a MSTU patch on their jumpsuits, that the suits were made months ago etc...  Meaning it's just a coincidence.

Their mascot is potato. Go Potato!

[Anastasis 23469]

7 hours ago, Nivek said:

The idea of making a comparison is to find things in which are alike in specific manners and not in some coarse generalized methodology. 

Or you could just spew the most basic and disingenuous nonsense about 1960s Cuba as analogy and call it a day.   

[Woland 733]

I think I’ve seen this movie before 

A long time ago we took in for a few weeks an exchange student from Uzbekistan. She had Asian features but also had blue eyes and freckles. Her great-grandfather had been a Polish officer who was captured and he and his family were sent to Uzbekistan. The officer and his wife died leaving a young daughter who was sold to be a wife for a wealthy Uzbek. The daughter was the exchange student’s grandmother.

[Biff Tannen 45683]

1 hour ago, Woland said:

A long time ago we took in for a few weeks an exchange student from Uzbekistan. She had Asian features but also had blue eyes and freckles. Her great-grandfather had been a Polish officer who was captured and he and his family were sent to Uzbekistan. The officer and his wife died leaving a young daughter who was sold to be a wife for a wealthy Uzbek. The daughter was the exchange student’s grandmother.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Biff Tannen
Albert Einstein?

[Hagbard Celine 10864]

6 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Putin's Folly  ... excellent article from The Economist

 

  Hide contents

About the author: Brian Klaas is a global-politics professor at University College London, a weekly columnist for The Washington Post, and the host of the Power Corrupts podcast. He is the author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us.

 

 

In the span of a couple of weeks, Vladimir Putin—a man recently described by Donald Trump as a strategic “genius”—managed to revitalize NATO, unify a splintered West, turn Ukraine’s little-known president into a global hero, wreck Russia’s economy, and solidify his legacy as a murderous war criminal.

How did he miscalculate so badly?

To answer that question, you have to understand the power and information ecosystems around dictators. I’ve studied and interviewed despots across the globe for more than a decade. In my research, I’ve persistently encountered a stubborn myth—of the savvy strongman, the rational, calculating despot who can play the long game because he (and it’s typically a he) doesn’t have to worry about pesky polls or angry voters. Our elected leaders, this view suggests, are no match for the tyrant who gazes into the next decade rather than fretting about next year’s election.

Reality doesn’t conform to that rosy theory.

Autocrats such as Putin eventually succumb to what may be called the “dictator trap.” The strategies they use to stay in power tend to trigger their eventual downfall. Rather than being long-term planners, many make catastrophic short-term errors—the kinds of errors that would likely have been avoided in democratic systems. They hear only from sycophants, and get bad advice. They misunderstand their population. They don’t see threats coming until it’s too late. And unlike elected leaders who leave office to riches, book tours, and the glitzy lifestyle of a statesman, many dictators who miscalculate leave office in a casket, a possibility that makes them even more likely to double down.

Despots sow the seeds of their own demise early on, when they first face the trade-off between allowing freedom of expression and maintaining an iron grip on power. After arriving in the palace, crushing dissent and jailing opponents is often rational, from the perspective of a dictator: It creates a culture of fear that is useful for establishing and maintaining control. But that culture of fear comes with a cost.

For those of us living in liberal democracies, criticizing the boss is risky, but we’re not going to be shipped off to a gulag or watch our family get tortured. In authoritarian regimes, those all-too-real risks have a way of focusing the mind. Is it ever worthwhile for authoritarian advisers to speak truth to power?

As a result, despots rarely get told that their stupid ideas are stupid, or that their ill-conceived wars are likely to be catastrophic. Offering honest criticism is a deadly game and most advisers avoid doing so. Those who dare to gamble eventually lose and are purged. So over time, the advisers who remain are usually yes-men who act like bobbleheads, nodding along when the despot outlines some crackpot scheme.

Even with such seemingly loyal cronies, despots face a dilemma. How can you trust the loyalty of an entourage that has every reason to lie and conceal its true thoughts? The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophon wrote of that inescapable paradox of tyranny: “It is never possible for the tyrant to trust that he is loved … and plots against tyrants spring from none more than from those who pretend to love them most.”

To solve this problem, despots create loyalty tests, ghoulish charades to separate true believers from pretenders. To be trusted, advisers must lie on behalf of the regime. Those who repeat absurd claims without blinking are deemed loyal. Anyone who hesitates is considered suspect.

In Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, for example, the lies have gotten progressively more ridiculous. Once a lie becomes widely accepted, the value of that individual loyalty test declines. Once everyone knows that Kim Jong Un learned to drive when he was just 3 years old, a new, more extreme lie must emerge for the test to serve its purpose. The cycle repeats itself, and a cult of personality is born.

Plenty of people around Putin understood that dynamic, which is why they were willing to parrot Putin’s outlandish claim that the Jewish president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, is presiding over a “neo-Nazi” state. (Such mythmaking can happen in democracies too, if you have an authoritarian-style leader. Just consider how many Republicans have fallen over one another to endorse Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election in order to prove their MAGA bona fides.)

But to stay in power, despots have to worry about more than just their advisers and cronies. They have to win over, intimidate, or coerce their population too. That’s why dictators invest in state-sponsored media. In Russia, the state goes so far as to present fake presidential candidates who pretend to oppose Putin in rigged elections. The whole system is a Potemkin village, an illusion of choice and political debate.

Again, that mechanism of control comes with a cost. Some citizens brainwashed by state propaganda will support a war that is sure to backfire. Others privately oppose the regime, but will be too afraid to say anything. As a result, reliable polling doesn’t exist in autocracies. (Russia is no exception.) That means that despots like Putin are unable to accurately understand the attitudes of their own people.

If you live in a fake world long enough, it can start to feel real. Dictators and despots begin to believe their own lies, repeated back at them and propagated by state-controlled media. That might help explain why Putin’s recent speeches have stood out as unhinged rants. It’s certainly possible that his mind has succumbed to his own propaganda, creating a warped worldview in which the invasion of Ukraine was, as Trump put it, an incredibly “savvy” move.

The risks of miscalculation are compounded, psychology research has shown, by the fact that power literally goes to your head, including in a key way that may be relevant in explaining Putin’s costly gambit in Ukraine. The longer someone is in power, the more they begin to get a sense of what is known as “illusory control,” a mistaken belief that they can control outcomes much more than they actually can. That delusion is particularly dangerous in dictatorships, in which there are virtually no checks or balances, no term limits or free elections to boot someone from power.

Some Russia experts, such as Fiona Hill, have recently suggested that Putin has spent much of the pandemic isolated and alone, poring over old maps of the lost Russian “imperium.” Cumulatively, it’s possible to imagine how these factors combined to convince Putin that his brutal blunder in Ukraine was a good idea.

When despots screw up, they need to watch their own back. Yet again, they can become victims of the dictator trap. To crush prospective enemies, they must demand loyalty and crack down on criticism. But the more they do so, the lower the quality of information they receive, and the less they can trust the people who purport to serve them. As a result, even when government officials learn about plots to overthrow an autocrat, they may not share that knowledge. This is known as the “vacuum effect”—and it means that authoritarian presidents might learn of coup attempts and putsches only when it’s too late. This raises a question that should keep Putin awake at night: If the oligarchs were to eventually make a move against him, would anyone warn him?

Clearly, Putin is no fool. But as we debate possible endgames to the war in Ukraine, we shouldn’t kid ourselves. Putin, like many despots, isn’t behaving fully rationally. He inhabits a fantasy world, surrounded by people who are afraid to challenge him, with a mind that has been poisoned by more than two decades as a tyrant. He’s made a catastrophic mistake in Ukraine—one that may yet prove his downfall.

Democracy isn’t perfect. It’s messy. It can be shortsighted. Many powerful democracies, including the United States, are dysfunctional. But at least our leaders face real constraints, real pushback for their miscalculations, and real criticism from their population. And, crucially, there’s a built-in mechanism to replace our leaders when they start to behave irrationally or irresponsibly.

That’s why it’s time to jettison the myth of the “savvy” strongman, or the dictator who’s a geopolitical “genius.” Putin has fallen victim to the dictator trap and proved that he is neither.

 

fantastic

60 daya

[Hagbard Celine 10864]

1 hour ago, Woland said:

A long time ago we took in for a few weeks an exchange student from Uzbekistan. She had Asian features but also had blue eyes and freckles. Her great-grandfather had been a Polish officer who was captured and he and his family were sent to Uzbekistan. The officer and his wife died leaving a young daughter who was sold to be a wife for a wealthy Uzbek. The daughter was the exchange student’s grandmother.

pics?

[brakeman 28366]

 

[brakeman 28366]

One wonders why -- even as the Russian siege starves the half-million residents of Mariupol -- these food companies carry on business as normal in Russia:

@kfc
@pizzahut
@PapaJohns
@tacobell
@SUBWAY
@GeneralMills
@Cinnabon
@dunkindonuts
@KraftHeinzCo
@KelloggCompany

Do not support these American companies!

[Anastasis 23469]

If it takes the invasion of Ukraine for you to reconsider patronage of kfc and taco bell you are already lost. 

[Brisketexan 105134]

If it takes the invasion of Ukraine for you to reconsider patronage of kfc and taco bell you are already lost. 

But jack in the box tacos are still ok, right?
Because America, freedom, and alcohol-fueled bad decisions.

[Hornius Emeritus 12461]

3 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

Was FDR Hitler for moving Japanese Americans into concentration camps?

Your form of argument would seem to argue so. My position does not. Neither FDR or Putin are Hitler. Nor is Putin FDR. 

It's like arguing about how many Todesengels can dance on the head of a pin. Further, a nation sometimes puts up with evil or even supports it in what it perceives to be its own interests. We're a nation that does that. Sometimes it's the best if not right thing to do.

It's not a schoolyard out there.

Are you equating  Putin with FDR?

[brakeman 28366]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

If it takes the invasion of Ukraine for you to reconsider patronage of kfc and taco bell you are already lost. 

Always, a doofus. 

[brakeman 28366]

2 minutes ago, brakeman said:

Always, a doofus. 

Because you must be that guy.

doo·fus

/ˈdo͞ofəs/

Learn to pronounce

 

noun

INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN

 

1. a stupid person.

   "a doofus who paid an inflated price for a tatty house"

[tx 3 putt 76952]

 

[Fastbreak 3985]

Amazing how Fox is now just a Russian mouthpiece. I really wonder if these people can really sleep at night.

[WhatTheBuck 28781]

Trump is a Russian mouthpiece and Fox News is a Trump mouthpiece therefore Fox News is a Russian mouthpiece. 

[tx 3 putt 76952]

they're all puppets 

[Dutchrudder 11139]

14 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

they're all puppets 

"NO PUPPET! NO PUPPET! YOURE THE PUPPET!!!". Will forever be the greatest line delivered in a Presidential Debate. I still chuckle to myself when I think of it. 

[C-Man 27224]

3 hours ago, Anastasis said:

If it takes the invasion of Ukraine for you to reconsider patronage of kfc and taco bell you are already lost. 

That KFC chicken sandwich is pretty legit, though. And you'll have to pry my Heinz ketchup from my cold, dead fingers.

[Thatguy 8699]

6 hours ago, Woland said:

A long time ago we took in for a few weeks an exchange student from Uzbekistan. She had Asian features but also had blue eyes and freckles. Her great-grandfather had been a Polish officer who was captured and he and his family were sent to Uzbekistan. The officer and his wife died leaving a young daughter who was sold to be a wife for a wealthy Uzbek. The daughter was the exchange student’s grandmother.

   That's exactly what my wife looks like. Asian features with blue eyes.

[Thatguy 8699]

2 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Trump is a Russian mouthpiece and Fox News is a Trump mouthpiece therefore Fox News is a Russian mouthpiece. 

  If the shit hits the fan, we will look back in history on how the propaganda here at home played such a huge role in WW3. I cannot for the life of me understand how intelligent people can stomach that shit, Republican or not. We are currently a people incapable of self evaluation. I spoke before on paying attention to who is voting with you. Well, if Russian State TV is using your favorite talk shows in THEIR propaganda, you should probably do some soul searching. I mean, the same group who has commandeered the American flag, the same group who is the first one to say you aren't a patriot if, are at home giving a standing ovation to programming also being shown as positive in a country with a dictator trying to start WW3. Where have we fallen? These people's dead grandparents hated the "commies" and now their offspring are running around with "Lets go Brandon" stickers, denigrating the current president of our United States, while at the same time chest-bumping a likely soon to be Communist Dictator. How less patriotic can you be? They must be rolling in their graves.

[Fastbreak 3985]

5 hours ago, Dutchrudder said:

"NO PUPPET! NO PUPPET! YOURE THE PUPPET!!!". Will forever be the greatest line delivered in a Presidential Debate. I still chuckle to myself when I think of it. 

Listen to Hillary's points. She was dead on.  Too bad people didn't listen or were incapable of actual thinking.

[Anastasis 23469]

4 hours ago, C-Man said:

That KFC chicken sandwich is pretty legit, though. And you'll have to pry my Heinz ketchup from my cold, dead fingers.

Fortunately the Chicago overlords have not yet put a Whataburger in Moscow, so we’re rolling. 

[WhatTheBuck 28781]

“You’re the puppet!” From the every accusation is a confession department. 

[TexArcher 37774]

7 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

Amazing how Fox is now just a Russian mouthpiece. I really wonder if these people can really sleep at night.

They can.  Horrible people don't feel guilt about being paid massive sums of money to do horrible things.

[Nivek 16928]

8 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

Amazing how Fox is now just a Russian mouthpiece. I really wonder if these people can really sleep at night.

Bold Response: Um, they have been for a while dude.  

Italics Response: I hear cash stuffed pillows and duvets are rather insulating.