>>482059>It wasn't "rational" to start this conflict to begin with, but here we are.Yeah this is endlessly frustusing (frustrating & confusing).
>For some of the people driving this, it's personal. The Kagan family is deeply invested in this conflict and have been since they helped pen Project For A New American Century. Their ngo Institute for the Study of War is basically entirely devoted to managing this war with Russia. Iirc, Victoria Nuland who is married to one of the Kagan brothers, I believe she's descended from Ukrainian Nazis that fled to the West after the war, so for her in particular this anti-Russian crusade is a personal vendetta. >But aside from them, you've also got the Biden and Clinton families that also have a lot riding on this conflict and have invested significant capital in it. This would be a dynamic similar to what happened in clan societies. How is that still happening, shouldn't the bourgeoisie have created a state bureaucracy that frustrates clan shenanigans ?
I'm not saying your wrong, you're obviously right about this, but how ?
>More generally though, the entire "rules based order" is riding on this. This will be the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union that another country has not only told the US "no," but also acted to physically stop it, and by all apparent evidence is succeeding.I tend to agree but is this really the first time since the post Soviet era that they got blocked. The US did like 250-ish "military interventions" since the 90s. It wasn't all a victory lap, they lost a bunch of those.
>For the Atlanticist bourgeoisie, losing this war is a catastrophic outcome because it means their monopoly on violence is over and now there is a real alternative to their dictatorship.It must seem like a catastrophe, loosing all that power. But is it really ? Consider that China spends about 10 times less to get the same amount of influence compared to the US. When the Chinese set up shop in some country, they build roads/rails, string up communication/power-lines, construct air/naval-ports and so on, and they get so much more bang for their buck compared to the US setting up military bases. I guess you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
The Chinese don't have a monopoly on building useful stuff, everybody can do that. Sending a digger construction vehicle is worth 10 reaper drones worth of influence.
>Not only is Russia fighting and winning, but it's doing so against "all of NATO." It shouldn't even be possible that this "gas station with nukes" could oppose them, not with "a gdp smaller than Italy's."Yeah, all those think tanks and they never bothered to check whether Russia had a factory that could make lots of artillery shells.
>But also, part of the reason the war has to continue from Nato's perspective is because there isn't any alternative, not for them anyway. They never really even considered one.I agree that Nato structures will never cease to pursue war with Russia, but Nato has been reduced to an arms lobby, it no longuer facilitates collective security. Europe has an incentive to dissolve Nato because it's the means by which the US keeps the disparate European militaries segregated in to small mostly ineffective national forces. If Nato goes away, Europe could consolidate all it's national armies into a European one. Weapons production could be consolidated as well, so much duplicate effort and incompatible technical standards could be economized away. Current structures are so un-optimized that you could reduce military spending by half while still massively increase force projection capabilities. I guess it would also require a few new political institutions, you have to let people elect the head-honcho who controles what that military does. Otherwise people won't go for it, but that's an administrative wrangle. Difficult but doable. Europe would become a "big place" that could have it's own foreign policy. I think it would elevate the people who favor keeping relations with Russia on non-hostile terms. Warm and friendly relations are not realistic for the foreseeable future but non-hostile would still be an improvement.
>It's not rational, but at least the in US "rationality" was abandoned with the Bush administration. The dominating ideology of the empire is explicitly non-rational.Evidently this is true, but i still can't wrap my head around how "the crazies" end up running the show.
<We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.I know that quote, in retrospect it's probably the most self defeating attitude of the neocons. Because obviously all their geopolitical opponents analyzed what the neocons were doing and began exploiting the neocon pattern, and the neocons can't adapt to it because they think only they create reality. For example the US neocons destabilize a region and then the Chinese swoop in with their "win-win cooperation" deals. As a result another neocon scheme to subjugate a vassal falls flat. They have lost like half a dozen countries this way in the last couple of years. Including Saudi Arabia, the US's knob for adjusting oil-prices. There is no reflection, all they do is go harder on what no longer works.