The EU and US were an unassailable bastion of freedom, peace, and prosperity, with arguably the most solid political foundations in history in democracy, and the most solid alliance in history in NATO.
How do you defeat such a place? You turn up the heat, to describe it very generally. It means, n a sense, radicalizing the population, a classic solution to Russia's problem. That's what terrorists do: How do you cause the US to shoot itself in the foot: terrorize people into thinking they are unsafe and overreacting (even though 9/11 affected on small area of one city).
One way they turn up the heat is to spread ethnic hatred, social distrust, embrace of violence, and abandonment of those things that prevent those maladies: universal human rights, democracy, rule of law, etc.
You can see it in this thread: People rooting for warfare, abandonment of the rule of law, etc. - all by some minor, cost-effective actions, like cutting a cable.
The expensive action and infinitely more consequential action - the invasion of Ukraine - remarkably doesn't create the same outrage. That outrage would trigger the obviously best solution: Guaranteeing unlimited material and political support for Ukraine until they win the war.
That is, it's remarkable if you don't appreciate information dominance, especially with social media companies either abandoning all responsibility or openly aiding the radicalization. Russia can create radicalization directly too.
Agreed it's what they're doing but this looks more like "turning everyone against you". And you want your enemies to underestimate you (like Song or Kievan Rus' underestimated the Mongols) but the world doesn't underestimate Russia. Maybe it could have but WW2 and appeasement are still too fresh in memory.
> this looks more like "turning everyone against you"
Someday, in hindsight, that might be what it looks like. Though notice that Russia has the world's #2 and rising power, China, on their side (in a marriage of convenience, I'm sure).
But I think there's an implicit misapprehension. The West is the status quo power, and Russia is revisionist, and both play out the traditional roles in that ancient game: Russia is challenging - trying to revise - the status quo order that puts the West on top. When you challenge the status quo order, lots of people invested in it don't like you; people born to the status quo can't imagine another way and reject you reflexively (and people also reflexively reject change).
This happens with tech innovation - status quo tech and disrupters. Sometimes it looks, in hindsight, like the disrupter 'turned everyone against them'. Sometimes people join them and they look like visionaries and leaders, and eventually elder statespeople. They are none of the above; they are just revisionists and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
> WW2 and appeasement are still too fresh in memory.
I find that hard to believe. I have no data, but my impression:
First, there has been plenty of appeasement since WWII. NATO already appeased Russia on Georgia long ago, on parts of Ukraine (e.g., Crimea) a decade ago. The West threatened but then let the Soviets crush dissent in Hungary and the Prague Spring in the mid-20th century. Détente, arguably a degree of appeasement, was US policy in the 1970s. Trying to bring China into the global order was the policy until the mid-to-late 2010s. There are many more examples.
Second, the rush to war and the abandonment of human rights as the foundation, the rule of law, international law, international institutions, the outlawing of war, NATO, the rejection of nationalism, etc. etc. ... are all abandonments of the WWII generation's lessons, principles, and accomplishments. They built the postwar order. They conducted the Nuremberg trials, specifically a demonstration of the rule of law, justice, and human rights - and some Nazis were found not guilty.
The EU and US were an unassailable bastion of freedom, peace, and prosperity, with arguably the most solid political foundations in history in democracy, and the most solid alliance in history in NATO.
How do you defeat such a place? You turn up the heat, to describe it very generally. It means, n a sense, radicalizing the population, a classic solution to Russia's problem. That's what terrorists do: How do you cause the US to shoot itself in the foot: terrorize people into thinking they are unsafe and overreacting (even though 9/11 affected on small area of one city).
One way they turn up the heat is to spread ethnic hatred, social distrust, embrace of violence, and abandonment of those things that prevent those maladies: universal human rights, democracy, rule of law, etc.
You can see it in this thread: People rooting for warfare, abandonment of the rule of law, etc. - all by some minor, cost-effective actions, like cutting a cable.
The expensive action and infinitely more consequential action - the invasion of Ukraine - remarkably doesn't create the same outrage. That outrage would trigger the obviously best solution: Guaranteeing unlimited material and political support for Ukraine until they win the war.
That is, it's remarkable if you don't appreciate information dominance, especially with social media companies either abandoning all responsibility or openly aiding the radicalization. Russia can create radicalization directly too.