I just want to say that I appreciate your comments. Responding to you forces me to clarify my thoughts and refine them. Our discussion helps me improve my analysis
Plus, I just really like talking to another good mind. So, I do appreciate what you are saying.
Now, I completely agree with you that the initial attack was botched. But then, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Serious planners make contingency plans in case of failure.
The big moment of risk for Putin was when it looked as if other countries might intervene directly. He had to make the threat of using tactical battlefield nukes but it paid off.
Whether or not you think he was bluffing, it worked for him. There was no third party intervention. The war in Ukraine is just between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia will win that war. Putin knows it and Zelenski knows it. When the flow of weapons to Ukraine dries up. Russia will grind Ukraine into the dust.
Ukraine is about to vanish. Not just as a nation, as a people. Putin intends to liquidate them completely.
You are still rejecting my fundamental premise. That this war is being driven by the unfolding Climate Crisis.
You, and basically all the other commentators, still don't have an answer to the question of "why". Why did Putin do this?
Because it makes no sense.
Even if everything had worked with Russia's plan, Russia still would have been sanctioned and an international pariah. Everyone says he "miscalculated" the strength of the international response.
So, what? He invaded because he thought he could away with it? He thought everyone would just shrug and say OK?
The only way that makes sense is if you see this as a massive mistake. An act of wild hubris by an arrogant, semi-delusional aging despot.
I am arguing that a massive Climate Crisis is unfolding. One so bad that hundreds of millions are going to starve. One so bad that countries will collapse and hundreds of millions of refugees are going to be on the move.
I think this is true, which doesn't mean much to anyone. I am a lunatic fringe Climate Doomer. Here's the thing though.
If I'm right, Putin's actions make perfect sense. In fact, the only way Putin's actions make sense is if I'm right.
Which means things are going to keep getting worse for the next five years.
As far as people starving around the world, I am not naive about Americans not giving a fuck. I was raised in Trumpublican America. My parents frequently told me that while helping others was nice, "charity begins at home".
White Trumpublican America doesn't give a rat's ass about POC dying in their "shithole" countries. It will find some way to blame the victims and ignore it.
The problem is that a globalized world is an ecosystem. And, like an ecosystem it can suffer a cascade collapse.
Knock out enough pieces and everything falls apart. No matter how much you try and stabilize it, things start breaking faster than you can fix them.
If we let things start failing around the world, the rate of collapse will accelerate. Very quickly, it will become a freefall. In that scenario, there are no winners.
