No cure for the collective West's dumbassery? — Edward Luttwak's self-contradicting Ukraine-to-victory essay

© 2023 Peter Free

 

10 August 2023

 

 

Miracles — neocons and their ilk tell us — will happen

 

For instance, after virtually an entire essay informing us why Ukraine is losing its self-provoked war with Russia — the genuinely interesting Professor Edward Luttwak reverse-concludes that:

 

 

There is, then, only one route forward: to fight the war in earnest, as befits a struggle of national liberation.

 

Ukraine’s population has declined but still exceeds 30 million, so that the total number in uniform could be as much as 3 million (Israel’s 10% ratio in 1948) or at least 2 million (Finland’s reservist count today).

 

With those troops, Ukraine could win its battles and liberate its territory in the same way as most of Europe’s wars of independence — by gruelling, attritional warfare.

 

© 2023 Edward Luttwak, Why Ukraine’s offensive has stalled, UnHerd (10 August 2023)

 

 

Next to this essay on its webpage, we are informed that:

 

 

Professor Edward Luttwak is a strategist and historian known for his works on grand strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations.

 

 

Lost your mind, professor?

 

Some obvious facts:

 

 

Ukraine's population is now well below 30 million, hundreds of thousands having been killed and millions fleeing.

 

Evidently, Luttwak thinks that he can imaginatively create millions of non-existent people to populate his attrition fantasies.

 

Note that most of Ukraine's able-bodied, military-capable men are now dead, wounded, missing or vanished across borders.

 

So, who is going to fight the professor's recommended war of attrition?

 

And who, where and how will anyone train the professor's imaginatively created men — in time to avoid Ukraine's visibly pressing defeat?

 

In the same dreaming vein — Israel's 1948 ten percent (military to civilian population) ratio is irrelevant because Israel was not fighting a peer comparable to Russia at the time. Had they been, Israel would not exist today.

 

Modern Finland's 2 million reservists are also beside the point because Finland has not and is not fighting anyone at all. Even its 1939-1940 Winter War against the Soviet Union concluded early because Finland could not come close to keeping up with the Red Army's get-serious might.

 

 

In short, Luttwak destroys his own argument with errors of fact and transparently nonsensical comparisons.

 

 

An intelligent critique of Luttwak's purported insight goes self-evidently further

 

Consider Matt Hindman's accurate summation of the Ukraine versus Russia situation.

 

Hindman's is the first comment posted under Luttwak's essay:

 

 

“With those troops, Ukraine could win its battles and liberate its territory in the same way as most of Europe’s wars of independence — by gruelling, attritional warfare.”

 

Such a dramatic and romantic thought.

 

Meanwhile in the real world, having a functional industrial base is a necessity for such a thing to even happen. Ukraine does not have one and the West’s is a joke.

 

Right now[,]  the United States is rapidly onshoring its industrial and defense capability as much as possible due to rising tensions with China. They will also need to replenish many of those stocks for a possible conflict.

 

Combined with changing public opinion, US aid is going probably going to drop like a rock. European NATO powers are in little position to pick up the slack due to slacking on their industrial capacity and defense spending.

 

Russia on the other hand, has a functional industrial base with good natural resources and a massive population to recruit from.

 

The problem Ukraine is facing right now is more fundamental than grand strategy or localized tactics. They are on the losing side of a mathematical equation.

 

 

Obviously so.

 

 

The moral? — In this pseudo-hallucinating manner . . .

 

. . . the West actively trashes its once-upon-a-time eminence. Pillage-inclined psychotics do not cope well with what is real.

 

A more Darwinian test of societal survival genes will not likely arise. Too bad, that we have so much avaricious dumb-shittery on our Western side.

 

Reality's prognosis for us is not a particularly pleasant one.

 

And why does the West keep losing moral sight of the fact that the Ukraine War — which we provoked on purpose — has already proxy-killed about 400,000 Ukrainian troops?

 

Not to mention everyone else, who has been slaughtered.

 

It is, therefore, not an attractive Western society that is suiciding its prominence, due a combination of abysmally evil morality and absurd Reality-defiance.

 

'Good riddance' will be the Future's in memoriam, regarding us.