Day 877

The ear is the bloodiest part

As an Irish citizen, I’m not eligible to vote the 2024 presidential election, but I watched Donald’s 93-minute speech anyway.

The candidate — his sons Eric and Don Jr and VP pick James David — have left us a lot to unpack in recent days.

Hours before Donald’s marathon rant at the Republican Convension on Thursday, Z told the BBC that “there will be lots of hard work” if Team USA re-elects Donald, but he noted that Ukrainians are hard workers.

Wonderful.

Donald and Z are reportedly planning a chit chat soon.

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What Do You Call Tech Billionaires Who Back Trump? Fascists. You Call Them Fascists (Journal of Uncharted Blue Places, July 18, 2024)

Hardworking Ukrainians, for obvious reasons, are not fond of fascists and vice versa. As a rule, they don’t work with fascists. They kill them.

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Eric said in his RNC speech that American tax dollars would not be spent in “corrupt foreign nations.” He was not talking about Hungary, Serbia or Saudi Arabia

His younger brother, Donald Jr, has called Z an “ungrateful international welfare queen.”

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If you’re being attacked on a piece of ground that’s not particularly important, staying put in the face of overwhelming force is stupid. You should retreat and live to fight another day. On the other hand, if you’re defending something genuinely important, to be willing to die on on this hill is a course of action you might take seriously.

Rendezvous with death are common on battlefields, where soldiers fight to control the high ground. That’s what is taking place these days in Donbas, where the terrain is mostly flat as a pancake. It’s the Ukrainian equivalent to the coastal flood basin surrounded by forested limestone mountains near Thermopylae, where in 480 BC the Spartans and their allies, outnumbered fought to the last man against the advancing Persians under Darius the Great.

The phrase willing to die on this hill has been used over the centuries, figuratively, to defend an argument, not usually to attack someone else’s. Poets, especially war poets, like it, becuase it conveys how sad they feel about being snuffed out.

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Pete Seeger’s nephew, Americal war poet Alan Seeger (c/o Wikipedia)

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Yesterday, practicing philosopher Volodymyr Pastukhov used the dying on this hill phrase in this post, which speaks obliquely to the what will happen can’t be avoided observation we made back on Day 14¹. He also refers to our theatre of war as the casino of death.

Z is inviting the West to show courage and place their bets in the casino of death on Putin’s determination to use nuclear weapons. Permission to use modern weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, supplied to Ukraine by Western countries, theoretically could indeed greatly weaken the ability of the Russian Armed Forces to conduct offensive operations at the front (although it is quite difficult to predict the exact consequences). The question is what would happen next. Z says that this will increase Putin’s motivation to make peace.

But other scenarios are possible.

Putin is already interested in peace, but on his own terms. Z also seems to be all about peace, but, of course, also only on his own terms. According to the laws of mathematics, the word “peace” can be pulled out of brackets and we can focus on the conditions of the forumla. Any pause in the war with Russia retaining the occupied territories today suits Putin, as it preserves his power over Russia. But this does not suit Z, as it almost inevitably leads to his loss of power in Ukraine. Conversely, any pause in the war with Russia losing its occupied territories (even without Crimea) is more likely to lead to a revolution or coup d'état in Russia, which, of course, does not suit Putin and benefits Z, who in this case still gets a chance to retain his power.

Thus, in addition to the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has many options for ending, we have a political duel between two leaders (Putin and Z) who have become hostages of this war. For them, this conflict is a zero-sum game. Peace on Putin's terms (with preservation of at least part of the occupied territories) - Z leaves almost immediately. Peace on Z's terms (i.e. without territorial concessions from Ukraine) - Putin leaves not immediately, but inevitably. For both, political fate has long been a bet in the casino of death, and both exercise political leadership of their countries in the style of gambling.

There is not a shred of doubt that the threat war going to the nuclear stage will stop Z. For him, these are long-term collateral political losses. The problem is that Putin’s position is symmetrical. Ultimately, if we omit all the intermediate stages, then Putin and Z must, in a logical and consistent development of events, be faced with a choice: either loss of power or nuclear war, and let’s see what happens. It’s just that for Z the path to this moment of truth takes two moves, and for Putin it takes one. Z must first convince the West to provide Ukraine with military assistance that is actually sufficient to contain Russia (this includes, among other things, permission to strike with Western weapons deep into Russian territory) and only then a trip to the disco. Putin can arrange his own disco without outside help at any moment when he realizes that the situation at the front has become threatening to his power.

The West in this situation is faced with a rather difficult choice. It must realize for itself whether it is ready to enter this casino with its chips or, as the British say, “Do we want to die on this hill?” There is no rational answer to this question - it is largely a value-religious choice - but objective measurements of public opinion show that those willing to “die on this hill” are less and less with each passing month in Europe. This, it seems, is the “objective reality given to Z in feelings.” With Trump coming to power, these feelings will be formalized legally. The question remains, of course, whether Biden will want to paint his almost inevitable political demise with the bright colors of an exploding sky. But I think it's still unlikely. Therefore, the most likely outcome of the first round is that the world will avoid nuclear war, and Z will follow the fate prepared for him.

1. Day 14. What will happen can’t be avoided (March 9, 2022)