Neither Ukraine nor Europe's broader institutions were suffering from trust crises that weren't endogenous already. These fractures were exploited, not created, by Russia.

I think what Europe can and should do is reform dramatically — because in its current conditons it's incapable of responding.

OMG SAME!! I upgraded to 32 :3333

There are other ways to get involved, asides the shipping of weaponry. Closing the back channels to Russian sanctions is one.

There is no "free world" to speak of, nor free states, in the world system. There's capitalism — and dictatorships and liberal democracies that have found compatibility through it.

Russia is not going to destroy Europe. It can't — and it would also destroy itself in the process.

I am oblivious and choose not to use one but my transphobic mother stares at me the way I wouldn't like a man to do LOL

Ukraine's allies could choose to end this any time, but they don't because this war is, in the end, weakening Russia. The longer the war goes the more spent and tired the Russian army becomes, which helps NATO strategic interests.

TL;DR Ukraine is being kept on life support for Western convenience.

By "winning" I mean that their maximalist strategic goal was to take over, and their compromised goal was to destroy Ukraine so it couldn't function as a NATO launchpad while securing a land bridge to Crimea.

Both options are still on the table for them. Ukraine on the other hand is being guttered.

Russia is advancing, albeit very slowly, to enormous casualties. The war has become a positional conflict of attrition with Ukraine hoping its Western equipment and defenses can outlast Russia's manpower, and Russia hoping the opposite.

Russia is winning though not by much.

As a nerd, the metric system.

As a political person, human rights, yeah. I think few ideas ended up being as powerful that.

Even conservatives, who care about traditions over rights, are forced to use the language of rights to argue whatever they want, as anti-rights as it may conceptually be.

I'm not a historian by craft so my interest in history can only exist in relation to what's practical and applicable to my life.

As much as the Ancient world provides me context and philosophy, my problems, my life and my politics are modern.

I posted my first article already, which is a criticism of the online community #NAFO and just generally people who revel in the thought of war. I hope you like it 🙂

Going forward these essays will function like the rest of my videos do: One week early for Comet Patreons.