BRIEFLY NOTED: FOR 2022-05-31 Tu: Yes, I am an appeaser. The stake should be put in the ground: (a) full UN recognition of Muscovy’s borders including the Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea; (b) in exchange for immediate EU accession of Ukraine, a Marshall Plan for Ukraine rebuilding funded by a tax on Muscovite oil and gas exports, and NATO “training” brigades permanently located outside of Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and Kyiv (and Kishinev, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, and Helsinki for good measure). If the Muscovites don’t like the training brigades, or the tax, or the EU accession, then they can bargain for their removal in exchange for withdrawal from Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. Yes, it would be a betrayal. Yes, we should again hold the meeting at which this betrayal deal is inked at Yalta. But a bad peace is better than a good war.
With respect, your views on Ukraine are ... unsound, and not only because America is not actually a principal in the Russia-Ukraine war (you can tell from the name!)
The attack on Ukraine is an existential threat to America. The problem with guaranteeing Ukraine's security is that you (and Russia, and the UK) have already made that guarantee but have not made good on it. This undermines the general belief that America has the ability and the will to maintain the global order. We have already seen historic changes of sentiment in Finland, Sweden, and Germany, but that is just the beginning. Once Trump returns to office, how much credibility will NATO retain? Remember, his dream was to run it like a mafioso protection racket.
If America fails to preserve Ukraine, other countries are going to rationally conclude that the only sure security lies in the possession of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The bar for their development is far lower than it was 70 years ago; we have already seen Israel and North Korea succeed with relatively slender resources, and Iran is now almost a foregone conclusion. The NPT will start to unravel once arming looks like a safer option than non-proliferation; slowly at first, fast in the end. It is a positive feedback process, as each new member of the club increases the pressure on others to join, just as the arming of China provoked that of India and the arming of India provoked that of Pakistan.
This is your last, best chance to avoid nuclear catastrophe; don't fuck it up.
Appeaser or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s tempting to think Ukraine can give Russia what it says it wants in exchange for surrounding Russia with trip wires and then expect Russia to trade land for trip wires, but why would it? That just means Russia looses. And has no incentive not to rearm and try another day. Plus Russia wants Ukraine not a forest full of nitwits. (I say Russia, not Putin, on purpose.)
I know that in part what Prof. Bradford is doing is trying to set a contrast with Kissinger’s perpetual (and disgusting) admiration of force for force’s sake. (Maybe Kissinger’s misunderstanding of the Treaty of Westphalia will become my retirement project.) But I honestly think we do no favors by appearing to entertain compromise in an illegal war of conquest against a sovereign democracy through means of war crimes. If and when Ukraine wants to quit, we know how to secure her if she wants it. Until then, I think it’s best we follow Rob Henderson’s first item of advice.
"By abandoning Keynes’s behavioral micro-foundations, Samuelson… left his neoclassical synthesis open to a radical assault from the right…"
I think the weak point was to try to make make fiscal policy the "visible hand" that kept Say's Law in force. Fiscal policy should stick to income redistribution, public goods, and Pigou taxation/subsidies.
The Japanese underwater turbine approach to power generation is nothing new. The US has been using hydropower for electricity generation for years and years. Maine had a demo project to harness large tidal energy in Cogscook Bay. there are other demo projects going on as well.
With respect, your views on Ukraine are ... unsound, and not only because America is not actually a principal in the Russia-Ukraine war (you can tell from the name!)
The attack on Ukraine is an existential threat to America. The problem with guaranteeing Ukraine's security is that you (and Russia, and the UK) have already made that guarantee but have not made good on it. This undermines the general belief that America has the ability and the will to maintain the global order. We have already seen historic changes of sentiment in Finland, Sweden, and Germany, but that is just the beginning. Once Trump returns to office, how much credibility will NATO retain? Remember, his dream was to run it like a mafioso protection racket.
If America fails to preserve Ukraine, other countries are going to rationally conclude that the only sure security lies in the possession of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The bar for their development is far lower than it was 70 years ago; we have already seen Israel and North Korea succeed with relatively slender resources, and Iran is now almost a foregone conclusion. The NPT will start to unravel once arming looks like a safer option than non-proliferation; slowly at first, fast in the end. It is a positive feedback process, as each new member of the club increases the pressure on others to join, just as the arming of China provoked that of India and the arming of India provoked that of Pakistan.
This is your last, best chance to avoid nuclear catastrophe; don't fuck it up.
The main designers of the way the war will end will be the Ukrainians.
Price of the piece of paper: Bismarch: Not worth the price of the paper it is written on.
Appeaser or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s tempting to think Ukraine can give Russia what it says it wants in exchange for surrounding Russia with trip wires and then expect Russia to trade land for trip wires, but why would it? That just means Russia looses. And has no incentive not to rearm and try another day. Plus Russia wants Ukraine not a forest full of nitwits. (I say Russia, not Putin, on purpose.)
I know that in part what Prof. Bradford is doing is trying to set a contrast with Kissinger’s perpetual (and disgusting) admiration of force for force’s sake. (Maybe Kissinger’s misunderstanding of the Treaty of Westphalia will become my retirement project.) But I honestly think we do no favors by appearing to entertain compromise in an illegal war of conquest against a sovereign democracy through means of war crimes. If and when Ukraine wants to quit, we know how to secure her if she wants it. Until then, I think it’s best we follow Rob Henderson’s first item of advice.
"By abandoning Keynes’s behavioral micro-foundations, Samuelson… left his neoclassical synthesis open to a radical assault from the right…"
I think the weak point was to try to make make fiscal policy the "visible hand" that kept Say's Law in force. Fiscal policy should stick to income redistribution, public goods, and Pigou taxation/subsidies.
The Japanese underwater turbine approach to power generation is nothing new. The US has been using hydropower for electricity generation for years and years. Maine had a demo project to harness large tidal energy in Cogscook Bay. there are other demo projects going on as well.
Been watching Stranger Things this weekend?