This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit radixjournal.substack.comIn a wide-ranging discussion, the gang goes into the Swedish Democrats’ recent strong showing, and the problems with Euro-nationalist parties in general; Richard argues that Putin’s only choice is full motivation and escalation and that the Ukraine war will only get worse; and in the final hour, the gang discuss the Hol…
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| You cannot make the argument that Ukraine's a fake country and it's going to collapse like a folding chair in a matter of weeks. | |
| So why are we wasting our time with this? | |
| Let's start dealing with Russia. | |
| Russia's the strong power. | |
| Ukraine's weak. | |
| We're just going to have to deal with the strong power. | |
| Those arguments are fair, I guess. | |
| You know, like, theoretically, but I think at this point, I mean, all of these, you know, and I even see this in the United States with these effectively pro-Russian bloggers who are, like, just telling you, like, let me just tell you the truth here. | |
| This war is going to last days. | |
| Even resisting in any way is just going to cause bloodshed and pain and heartache. | |
| Don't do it. | |
| You know, Russia's badass. | |
| Maybe even the best military, if not the second best. | |
| And, you know, all this kind of bluster. | |
| And I feel like all of that is just ridiculous at this point. | |
| You know, I mean, the Ukraine has obviously been helped tremendously by NATO and the United States. | |
| But like, it's also a fighting force that has done the fighting and dying. | |
| And so you just can't make these arguments. | |
| I mean, particularly now when something like victory is in sight. | |
| Now, I ultimately don't think that victory is in sight. | |
| I believe that You know, first off, in terms of the South and Crimea, those places, we haven't seen blitzkrieg victories there. | |
| How far Ukraine's going to push to the East is an interesting question. | |
| I mean, I definitely think, you know, whether you're talking about, like, military endeavors or sports or whatever, it's about piling on and, you know, nothing succeeds like success. | |
| You just keep... | |
| Once you have momentum, it's time to start pressing, pressing, pressing. | |
| So we'll see if they're going to actually go into the Donbass region. | |
| I think this is a huge issue. | |
| But from the standpoint of Putin, it's reasonable to suggest that at the very beginning, he thought that he could just throw a knockout punch. | |
| You know, go in, disrupt the government in Kyiv, put in his own guise. | |
| Whether he wanted to just, you know, take over the whole country, I'm not sure. | |
| But he certainly wanted to disrupt things tremendously in his favor. | |
| And, you know, basically turn Ukraine into Belarus. | |
| You know, in Belarus. | |
| And Russia are in something approaching a union state. | |
| But he can't do that. | |
| So that has failed, absolutely failed. | |
| And it's been embarrassing. | |
| But, you know, you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound. | |
| I mean, the notion that he'll now back down and negotiate, I think is just totally... | |
| I mean, I think that would just be impossible for him to do, because he would be out of power immediately. | |
| I mean, there's no way this would have been viewed as anything other than a humiliation. | |
| And so where we are now, I mean, maybe smartly, Putin did describe this as a special military operation and not a war. | |
| So he kind of kept his powder dry. | |
| He didn't totally mobilize the country. | |
| Now, obviously, Russia has suffered tremendous losses. | |
| And it's interesting when you look at the man-to-man ratio. | |
| So from what I understand, when you're invading a country, you need to have three-to-one resource advantage. | |
| To successfully invade. | |
| This is just a rule of thumb in the sense that you have the initiative and having the initiative striking first is absolutely an advantage. | |
| But of course, the people you're invading can hunker down. | |
| They can maintain morale. | |
| You're defending your own home. | |
| They know the terrain better than you do, etc. | |
| So it's a kind of, you need to outnumber them three to one. | |
| To successfully invade a country, more or less. | |
| And from what I understand, it was actually a one-to-one ratio in terms of Russian soldiers to Ukrainians. | |
| And, you know, he's going to need full mobilization of the country going forward. | |
| I mean, unless he's going to basically be humiliated. | |
| And watch NATO expand. | |
| He, I don't know, maybe negotiates an ability to hold on to the Donbass region or something. | |
| That just strikes me as humiliating. | |
| And he would be out of power almost immediately. | |
| And the other thing about it is that kind of like when you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound. | |
| I mean, even if he is... | |
| Kicked out or even executed or something. | |
| The sanction regime isn't going away. | |
| And the notion that Europe would just be like, oh, it's okay. | |
| We forgive everything. | |
| Let's just move on. | |
| And we're going to start buying more and more gas from you. | |
| I don't think that is in the cards. | |
| I don't see that as plausible. | |
| This reaction has been so tremendous. | |
| You cannot dial that back within a decade or two decades. | |
| I mean, it is major. | |
| There's an interesting article I just read this morning on kind of a neo-Cold War footing, including China, which is this article in Foreign Affairs and an article in the New York Times on it. | |
| But I feel like Putin... | |
| Is now forced to engage in full mobilization. | |
| And so I think a lot of dangerous things are now very possible when he does that. | |
| I just, it is, I mean, I can be proven wrong, but it is hard to imagine him backing down and negotiating a settlement. | |
| I just, I cannot see that. | |
| And if he did that, he would be out of power immediately. | |
| So I think this is, it might take him a little bit of time to kind of get the wheels rolling again, but I see full mobilization and a major counterattack and also, like, the possibility of tactical nuclear weapons is in the air. | |
| Because that would be an absolute strategic advantage for him. | |
| First off, he has that in his arsenal. | |
| Secondly, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. | |
| There has been a pro-NATO reaction in Western and Central Europe and Northern Europe. | |
| Of course there has been. | |
| But there are voices out there. | |
| That are basically like, let's fold. | |
| Why are we doing this? | |
| This is going to be a quagmire. | |
| You know, I'm cold and, you know, we're just giving money to Ukraine. | |
| You know, you see those voices in the United States, you see those voices in Europe. | |
| They are minority voices, but they're there. | |
| And they can become really intense. | |
| And so I do think that like a massive counter strike is in that that is a strategic advantage that Putin has. | |
| So anyway, I mean, I think overall, I think that Ukraine has proven itself. | |
| It's had tremendous help, of course, but like nevertheless, it's proven itself. | |
| And but I think. | |
| Yeah, I think we might have a little bit of a lull here and a kind of, you know, victory celebration. | |
| And once we get into like the year anniversary, I think we might be in a situation where things are much more intense. |