Thread by @lymanstoneky

Cogent article from @akarlin0 on why he thinks Russia will invade and win rather easily.

A few qualms with it though. To the extent season matters, the thaw already came: it's been above freezing and raining in Kharkiv for days! akarlin.substack.com/p/regathering-…

The slushy above-freezing rain is forecast to continue at least until this coming Tuesday, and there is no forecast yet for a return to below-freezing daytime highs. i.e. Russia has already lost the window for hard-frozen ground.

That said, it's not clear how much this actually matters, since as @akarlin0 notes, given Putin's pretty strong aversion to reporting casualties, Russia would likely try to use longer-range weapons as much as possible so they can roll into uncontested positions.

I think this article also underrates the effect of sanctions on Russia even though I agree that sanctions may not ultimately dissuade Putin: but I think they can hurt the Russian economy a lot more than @akarlin0 thinks.

But there's a sort of silly ignorance throughout the whole article: as if the fortunes of war are easily predicted. As if we can simply know what will happen and what other countries will do.

He thinks Ukrainian liberals are gay hipsters staring at their iphones who will flee at the first sign of trouble.

The problem with that story is the Ukrainian democrats are disproportionately coming from the more religious, more rural, parts of Ukraine, in the west.

Aside from the whole nonsense about liberals not fighting (Confederacy made that mistake about the Union), even on that basis Ukraine's democrats are not even remotely the stereotype that @akarlin0 makes them out to be: I mean they include organized fascist battalions among them.

And as far as iPhone usage.... Ukrainians have lower internet access and lower smartphone penetration than Russians do. So in terms of which side is extremely-online people scrolling all day, it's the Russians.

And these differences are large: in the 2017-2020 WVS, only about 7% of Russians were a member of a religious organization, vs. about 17% of Ukrainians.

Characterizing Ukrainians as these soft liberal hipsters is just delusional.

I can go on. What are other indicators we might look for in surveys that tell us if the people of a country are the docile sheep that folks like @akarlin0 suggest Ukrainians are?

Well, we could ask "What share of people say obedience is a very important trait in a child?"

@akarlin0 In Sweden, it's 7%.

In Russia, it's 18%.

In Ukraine, it's 32%.

Countries similar to Ukraine:

Tajikistan
Philippines
Cyprus
Montenegro
Indonesia
Argentina
Iran
Bosnia
Belarus

You'll notice a lot of those are countries which have had significant wars or insurgencies in recent memory.

In terms of just its self-expressed values, Ukraine looks a lot like a country where a lot of people might fight.

I did a thread yesterday on the share of men under 40 who report a willingness to fight for their country: both Ukraine and Russia are about average, Ukraine at 76%, Russia at 81%.

Ukraine and Russia are both very similar in that they both have fairly high acceptance of political violence: about 45% of the population of each country says political violence is at least sometimes justifiable. This is a very high number compared to e.g. European countries.

And in terms of national pride, yes Ukrainians are a bit low at 36% of them being "very proud" of their country, Russians are low too at just 43%. These are two countries with very low levels of national pride on both sides.

My point here is not necessarily that a Ukrainian insurgency will occur or that Ukraine has a shot at winning... but that I think that, as I said, the fortunes of war are always uncertain, and in this case I think @akarlin0 has seriously misunderstood who the Ukrainians are.