For his end of year audit Sam was able to assess his performance against some reasonably objective indicators – election outcomes and the mismatch between revenue and spending.
The fundamental question remains: Why would Putin want to negotiate and settle on anything less than his maximalist goals? The feeble and fearful West is besotted with peacemaking, but is Russia even remotely interested?
Putin has sufficient disposable single-use soldiers available, enough matériel for another two or three years of attritional warfare, and with China, North Korea and Iran allies that deliver, while Ukraine has allies that dither.
Someone needs to call out the insane warmongers who want to see the world go up in nuclear hellfire.
We should all be “besotted” with peacemaking. My god, the level of brainrot people have indulged by making this war a hobby to be consumed on the internet is astounding.
These sorts of arguments are confused in two ways. One is to misunderstand the process of the history of the war and the realities on the ground. I won't go into this as Prof Freedman explains it so well above and makes clear his position is entirely the opposite of this: that risks of nuclear escalation have fallen, not risen; and that Putin is the main barrier to "peace". You may disagree with Freedman, but given (i) you don't explain how and (ii) his expertise and record are very robust, I think the burden is yours.
The second is a moral confusion. While the rather pious language assumes the moral high ground, the argument actually has the same problem as Pascal's Wager: it abuses the idea of infinitely bad outcomes to abrogate any rigourous moral thinking completely. If the stakes are as high as you claim, then extremely careful consideration of (i) what our moral model and values are (e.g. consequentialism, Kantian deontology, virtue ethics - all of which can be drawn upon to support or refute the idea of a just war) and (ii) how the choices we make are likely to feed into those - are crucial. Instead of doing that, you simply invoke "peace" like it is a magic word, and then rhetorically walk off whistling.
But what if your idea of "peace" (you don't specify what this would look like - a ceasefire and NATO membership for Ukraine? Allowing Putin to annex Kyiv?) leads to morally worse outcomes? It could actually raise the likelihood of those dire moral stakes. This is at least thinkable, and cannot be ruled out a priori: in the same way blindly believing in Pascal's God might damn one to hell anyway. With effort, one could make a principled argument for (e.g.) pacifism based on, say, deontology - but it isn't easy, and you seem to prefer self-righteousness to actually doing that serious moral work, which will of course involve terrible trade-offs.
So your argument is actually a-moral, while dressed in moral language. That position is not intellectually tenable to many serious observers ("on the internet" or otherwise): we feel we have to do the real ethical work the gravity of the situation demands. I'm certain Zelensky and those in Ukraine feel this moral burden powerfully - to keep one's soul pure from these difficult questions is a great, and perhaps unattractive, luxury. It's obviously fine if you don't have the wherewithall, or are not prepared or equipped to do the moral work with full conscience of the trade-offs: we can't all do everything; but don't for a moment think this is justifiably an automatically morally superior position, and don't expect to be taken particularly seriously by those of us who are prepared to do the work - in moral or practical matters.
Could Putin use Trump's inauguration as an 'excuse' to cut his losses?
He could announce a cease-fire on acceptable terms on Jan 20th, cement Trump's reputation and simultaneously indebt him to Putin.
He could claim that the war was the fault of the previous administration, and that that risk has now passed. However absurd this sounds to a "reasonable" observer, it would certainly play well with Trump's base. Might it work for Putin's as well?
It’s too bad Prof Freedman had to write this article now and not in a month's time, when the early direction of the Trump foreign policy will be emerging.
Thanks for another year of great analysis. Happy 2025
A well-rounded end-of-year synopsis.
The fundamental question remains: Why would Putin want to negotiate and settle on anything less than his maximalist goals? The feeble and fearful West is besotted with peacemaking, but is Russia even remotely interested?
Putin has sufficient disposable single-use soldiers available, enough matériel for another two or three years of attritional warfare, and with China, North Korea and Iran allies that deliver, while Ukraine has allies that dither.
Someone needs to call out the insane warmongers who want to see the world go up in nuclear hellfire.
We should all be “besotted” with peacemaking. My god, the level of brainrot people have indulged by making this war a hobby to be consumed on the internet is astounding.
Perhaps you could set out your proposals for how we make peace with Putin?
These sorts of arguments are confused in two ways. One is to misunderstand the process of the history of the war and the realities on the ground. I won't go into this as Prof Freedman explains it so well above and makes clear his position is entirely the opposite of this: that risks of nuclear escalation have fallen, not risen; and that Putin is the main barrier to "peace". You may disagree with Freedman, but given (i) you don't explain how and (ii) his expertise and record are very robust, I think the burden is yours.
The second is a moral confusion. While the rather pious language assumes the moral high ground, the argument actually has the same problem as Pascal's Wager: it abuses the idea of infinitely bad outcomes to abrogate any rigourous moral thinking completely. If the stakes are as high as you claim, then extremely careful consideration of (i) what our moral model and values are (e.g. consequentialism, Kantian deontology, virtue ethics - all of which can be drawn upon to support or refute the idea of a just war) and (ii) how the choices we make are likely to feed into those - are crucial. Instead of doing that, you simply invoke "peace" like it is a magic word, and then rhetorically walk off whistling.
But what if your idea of "peace" (you don't specify what this would look like - a ceasefire and NATO membership for Ukraine? Allowing Putin to annex Kyiv?) leads to morally worse outcomes? It could actually raise the likelihood of those dire moral stakes. This is at least thinkable, and cannot be ruled out a priori: in the same way blindly believing in Pascal's God might damn one to hell anyway. With effort, one could make a principled argument for (e.g.) pacifism based on, say, deontology - but it isn't easy, and you seem to prefer self-righteousness to actually doing that serious moral work, which will of course involve terrible trade-offs.
So your argument is actually a-moral, while dressed in moral language. That position is not intellectually tenable to many serious observers ("on the internet" or otherwise): we feel we have to do the real ethical work the gravity of the situation demands. I'm certain Zelensky and those in Ukraine feel this moral burden powerfully - to keep one's soul pure from these difficult questions is a great, and perhaps unattractive, luxury. It's obviously fine if you don't have the wherewithall, or are not prepared or equipped to do the moral work with full conscience of the trade-offs: we can't all do everything; but don't for a moment think this is justifiably an automatically morally superior position, and don't expect to be taken particularly seriously by those of us who are prepared to do the work - in moral or practical matters.
Could Putin use Trump's inauguration as an 'excuse' to cut his losses?
He could announce a cease-fire on acceptable terms on Jan 20th, cement Trump's reputation and simultaneously indebt him to Putin.
He could claim that the war was the fault of the previous administration, and that that risk has now passed. However absurd this sounds to a "reasonable" observer, it would certainly play well with Trump's base. Might it work for Putin's as well?
It’s too bad Prof Freedman had to write this article now and not in a month's time, when the early direction of the Trump foreign policy will be emerging.
Thanks for another year of great analysis. Happy 2025
I'll be coming back to it!