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"protect us from anti-democratic politicians", and who decides who are anti-democratic?....... the left. No thanks, don't protect me from freedom by means of the authoritarianism you claim to fight against.
@@sullathehutt7720 There is only one reason why you would feel the need to attack others for their sexuality: seems you are unsure about yours. Unless you have some serious issues with whom you would like to bed ( maybe you are not getting any?) there is no reason you would care about whom other citizens want to bed. Proud of all our citizens in democracy!
We have to get away from the "Either it's perfect or it's garbage" mindset. Neither perfection nor garbage are real. We have to work with what we've got.
Sure, everything is only ever "refactoring" as software engineers know. However, we should rely on "first principles" and not on hallucinated concepts or beliefs for our decision making.
Well, it's never gonna be perfect or garbage. But NATO can't physically supply Ukraine enough weapons to outgun Russia. Also some western leaders will always be against helping random American proxies. Some western leaders will also want to trade with Russia again as soon as possible to boost both of their economies
Thank you, Vlad. I’m 82, live in California, and I’ve been steadily supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian volunteers with cash donations, daily prayers, and letters to President Biden, my Senators and my Representative, and phone messages to Speaker Mike Johnson. Last night I went to bed crying, because my efforts DO feel like dropping bits of water into a bucket with holes. I try to fabricate hope, but I’m so angry with the Republicans, and am embarrassed about the U.S. lack of a spine. I don’t want “partial success.” I grew up respecting our democracy and have believed it will come back and be OK. Now, for the first time in my life, I do feel scared. And I guess I’ve not accepted the possibility that Trump could win. Horrors!! Thanks for your sobering assessment. What more can I do?
As a Ukrainian I am thankful to you and other Americans who stand by Ukraine's side because this is the right thing to do to support a country fighting off an agression. If I understand correctly Vlad's point of view about the democracy, you do exactly what's needs to be done - engage in citizen politics. You should do that regardless of who is the president or senator or representative
Perhaps you need to spend less time preaching to the choir and more time reaching out to the those who oppose Ukraine funding. Biden and his admin ignore such talk because they know they don't have the votes to get it through congress. Republican congressmen ignore it because they don't have the support of their base to allow them to vote for it. Democrat supporters such as yourselves need to reach out to Republican voters, admit that you know that the media and politicians on your side lied for 4 years about Trump-Russia collusion to hamstring his agenda, but plead with them that despite that, Russia actually does pose a threat to the West, and needs to be stopped before they invade more countries. Unfortunately, that will require a level of empathy for Trump voters that most Biden voters no longer possess after years of conditioning and lies by the media. That is not to say that you have to agree with Trump's agenda or like him as a person, but you guys have a lot of admitting to Trump supporters that you know a lot of what was said about him were lies before Trump voters will be willing to listen to anything you have to say again. They have to feel that the truth matters to you before they're willing to consider that you might have some truths to share with them that they don't already have.
Totally agree - democracy is in crisis, I brought my children up to know that democracy is not a ‘given’ and that every generation will have to fight for it: I think history is poorly understood and ( I am based in the U.K.) many people do not even know who their MP is and how our democracy works. We need to teach young people how it works, what the alternatives are, why we need to protect democracy. How important voting is etc, it’s hard to protect something if you don’t know how it works. Thank you Vlad for what you are doing - I hope you are keeping well.
Many entering the U.S. at the moment weren't brought up that way. Not sure if the immigrants in the UK could care any less who is their MP. Those in America have high expectations (Dickens reference) of what their new country will do for them, not what they can do for their new country (JFK reference).
My MP is Penny Mordaunt…😐 Before that it was Mark Harper. When I wrote to him about an issue that was causing safety concerns on our roads, he gave me a full and detailed explanation on what was the reason, what was intended to be done and took TIME to talk to me. The action alone made me feel the authority was concerned and not dismissive of my voice. I may not have been totally happy with the answer, but he registered my concerns as my representative and I appreciated that.
It's absolutely a lack of leadership. We've had complete deficient communication from the administration on our goals, how we plan to achieve them, and updates on the progress of said plan. We also have had no clear presentation of why those goals serve our national interests. I am probably on the hawkish end of support for Ukraine, so I will think most action is insufficient, but the leadership shown by the administration thus far has been anemic at best and probably closer to apathetic.
Biden blurts out what he blurts out. Then his team members "walk back" select utterances. He blurted out "no boots on the ground" in Afghanistan, then in Ukraine. He has a thing about boots. Wants people to think he's smart (and nice) but was passed over for Hillary in 2016. And now the DNC are backing him and Kamala. Were they bribed by Trump?
I hate the only options we have is between vaguely supporting Ukraine and wanting to leave them to their fate. Where is our generation's Ronald Ragan or someone who will unleash the arsenal of Democracy?
We've been getting more of that from Nikki Haley than we've been getting from the current administration. And I say this as a lifelong committed Democrat. I agree that there has been a near complete absence of leadership on this from Biden, and for me, it's been absolutely agonizing to watch, especially with the knowledge that it will likely get much, much worse.
Weak leadership would be there as one of my bets, also. However, I think another main issue here is radical dysfunction of democratic processes. This covers many things, such as representation, political accountability (or lack thereof), and at the core of it, lack of a common shared ideal of what is fair and what is not based on a social contract that the citizenry, not the elites, subscribe to. In other words, the beneficiaries of the western democracies see no problems with the current social order while there is growing discontent among the western public and there is a tendency to marginalize such discontent. Dropping rates of electoral participation are a sign of this.
Biden hasn't been perfect, but remember that people were expecting worse, both from the US and Europe. That's how bad the West's position on Ukraine was before 2022. Nobody in the West wanted to deal with Ukraine and confront Russia, everyone was celebrating the supposed end of major land wars on the European continent, and European countries were cutting military budgets and industry like if there was nothing to worry about. Vlad's theory has many problems, one of which is just that you don't need high social trust to produce ammunition. Russia doesn't have great social trust. The problem is that Western Europe has destroyed its military-industrial base for decades, and only now are factories starting to be built or expanded, but it takes years for these things to happen. The most serious strategic error was the complacency of thinking that Europe did not need to have a military anymore after the collapse of the USSR, or thinking that the USA could do everything. Hopefully now Europe understands that they need their own military power.
Nice one! I do feel a big issue in the west is very dualistic thinking, where any issue that a "left" administration supports automatically becomes bad for the "right", and vice-versa. So instead of having the power of a democracy on certain issue like a X vector, we have it more like x/2 - x/2 =0, where two opposite vectors negate each other.
So many people are overloaded with information, and fun videos and games, that political stance is arrived at quickly, like going to the bathroom. As a result, political thought for most is a word for brown stuff.
It's hard to come together to support a cause when the other side have systematically been abused for nearly a decade for not agreeing with everything the other side claims
Indeed, it is a feature, not a bug. In a true two party system it is hard to significantly pull in either direction. It helps regulate extremes in governorship. Unfortunately democracies require a public consensus to operate effectively. That consensus usually takes something immenent and dire.
I am a sailor. For peaceful sleep i do a lot of inspection on my boat to prevent leaking holes and i repair before the problem is to big. Best regards to you Vlad from Caribbean
@@imipak23 Thing is, we have an interest of conflict. In the past decades, governments in Europe have been a menace to their own population. You see this in Germany and England for example. So do we want leaders? No, we don't. The best course of action has been to vote for the most inept politicians and coalitions of parties as this greatly limits the damage they can cause to the population. But in regards to Ukraine, we want competent political leaders that do what is necessary. Naturally, we can't have it both ways.
@@svr5423 The truth is, democracies do not usually prefer great leaders, but have always been attracted to politicians who stay out of their way, and muddle along. It is only in times of crises, that democracies are attracted to leaders who will rally them. As soon as the crisis is over, people prefer to elect those who are keyed into their comfort zones.
Looking forward to that ! On a serious note regarding your discussion it is perhaps as simple as the West not truly understanding the reality of a future following a defeat of Ukraine and how that will directly affect our existence in Europe. I believe many of us feel distanced and protected from a dictator like Putin regardless of his possible destruction of Ukraine and of democracy. Many people do not believe that his expansionist ambitions will extend to more territory than Ukraine...and the people who really have the power have only one question which is 'What's in it for us ?' There is also the distraction of Gaza...if I could wave a magic wand I would stop ALL funds to Israel, and would channel much more financial support to Ukraine. It is an accepted fact that we are not funding Ukraine to win but are possibly giving only enough support to ensure a delayed defeat. One might say therefore that we in the West and the USA are complicit in ensuring the success of Israel and Russia. It is profoundly shameful. @@VladVexlerChat
I'd say two reasons. 1. The west remembers going into Afghanistan and Iraq. They gave money to the governments. It wss then later foind thata majority of ot ended up in corruption. 2. People are afraid Russia will use nuclear weapons if we give too much. I say help Ukraine with everything it needs.
I don't think there is any comparison with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, those wars were highly controversial and debatable conflicts done in the name of bringing democracy to some countries populated by people that are openly hostile to western values and virtues. In comparison the war in Ukraine is an existential threat, a medieval style land grab and forceful enslavement of sovereign democratic nation, a population that aspires for the western values and liberties. As for corruption there will always be corruption, you can be sure there was corruption in USA and UK even during WW2.
I think this fear of Russia using nuclear weapons is mostly manufactured by Russia. Aiding Ukraine does not directly threaten Russia's power structure, while our response to a nuclear attack definitely would threaten their power structure.
@@BaddeJimme you think the regime could survive being kicked back to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders? I don't know if it could, but I agree Putin thinks not.
@@imipak23 I think it is at least possible for Putin to be expelled from Ukraine without him losing power, while an exchange of nukes would guarantee an end to Putin's regime.
Thanks for this! It seems intuitively true to me. It's helpful to understand the timidity with which 'the West' has acted towards Ukraine. Anything that lowers my stress level helps me to work more effectively.
@@AstroGremlinAmerican I know I can work well under stress, but I find Im much more cool and productive about it when I understand the constraints and environment im working with. Thats why I like videos like Vlads, they allow me to grow understanding, which makes me more confident and calm.
This explanation just feels right. I sometimes can't shake the idea that what we experience might feel similar to what people in the 1930s might have felt when democracies were struggling, the international order was crumbling and autocratic regimes were on the rise. Even during the rise of Hitler many had this "It probably won't get too bad" attitude. The missing democratic capacity in France, the UK led to Munich 1938 and Appeasement in my view. People only finally were ready to face facts when there was no escaping it no more and it was obvious war was coming. Let's hope we wake up earlier.
If Trump wins, that is the fastest way to end the war. Why? Because Europe will realize it's on its own, panic at first, but then remember it has had 30+ years of NATO cooperation to prepare for this, and then start acting like it. But this is only going to happen that fast once they realize they can't just wait for the US to foot the bill.
Center right? That was a democrat in 2000. First, we need to help the world's poor by letting them come live with us. It will make them magically different.
As a lefty, I respect anyone (left or right) who values the most important method of governing, democracy. I'm from Australia, we had the Teal wave, a bunch of moderates who sent the conservative party a message, which they ended up completely ignoring with Dutton.
@@edgarwalk5637 "Democracy" is becoming a hard sell to many Trump supporters when every time the Democrat officials and pundits open their mouths to say "our Democracy" they actually mean "our political, media, and cultural hegemony", and when they act blatantly anti-democratically so often, such as when they refused to give a single penny for US border security once Trump lost the house, and how they're trying to throw him and all his prominent supporters into either prison or bankruptcy due to legal fees and remove him from the ballot.
Agree. We used to have a common basis of facts and culture, and I'm not sure how to get back to that, and I'm not sure democracy can function without it. (I'm a center-left American).
In the US aid to Ukraine is held up by 7 Republicans . Out of a total 535 members of Congress. Meanwhile, 2/3 of the population favors continued assistance. So much for representative government.
@@stephenhill545nope, the speaker in the house and the senate majority leader set the agenda. It’s literally impossible to get a vote unless the leadership allows it. Basically 1 person in the entire country is holding this hostage because 2-3 other people might with draw support from him causing him to lose the speakership.
Vlad, thank you for your words🙏🏼. Today, on the third anniversary of the worst attack to the Capitol by a mob organized by the former president of my country, I’m feeling under the weather because he has not yet faced justice, but giving up is not an option, so tomorrow I will start my activism again, to help candidates that will support democracy and its institutions.
He's going to win the next election. As a European, your country is a mess, and Trump is the least of your concerns. People actively avoid America these days. It's not a go-to destination for many in Europe these days. Everywhere is riddled with crime and poverty.
As a foreigner it seems to me that your present President is a complete failure, targeting Trump does not change that but it does divert attention from your present problems.
I only feel what touches me. All else is illusion. This attitude is as endemic 'in the West', as it is in 'the East'. Until it appears on your doorstep. Then you are trapped.
Your "a ship with a couple of holes in the middle of the sea during a storm" analogy made me think of a film I watched last year, titled "Nowhere". It is a Spanish film, and in Spanish (but available on a well known streaming site with English subtitles), and it is not a ship/boat, but a shipping container which fell from a ship that she is stuck inside, but in it you can see the heroine of the film literally do just that...deal with being stuck in the middle of the sea in a "boat" filling with water from the holes in it. Though in her case it was already a "sinking ship at sea", not just a "ship with a few holes in it that can be fixed before it becomes a sinking ship". She makes her choice after accepting her reality (and yes, its a thriller, so not everything follows logic & everything is exaggerated to make it more thrilling, but that is the luxury of fiction), and tries to get some of the water entering exit her "boat", not just "accept things as they are without any (counter) action from her" I also like the quote from Miep Gies, one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank)s family): "“But even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room.” Just replace "ordinary secretary" (true in her case) with "ordinary civilian" to be less precise. There was a wonderful TV series about her & the Frank family released last year which got its title from this very saying/quote by her. A small light. (cause a hundred of "small lights" make up already a "big fire". A million of small donations create lots of funds. Many small deeds by "single, small people" can/will lead to "big, important things". ON their own every single persons small deed may mean not that much in the grand scheme of things, but all put together...that is another story already. And just cause we/some might not see the big picture & how their small deed can help, does not mean "small deeds" are "pointless".
It's almost absurd how democracies fuel their inability to act by not being able to act. It feels like the less they do of the right thing the more they're constrained in their next action. And the cycle continues until no action is performed at all, and trust disappears completely. Update: uh, a similar but more elaborate point is made at the end of the video; I should've finished the video before typing...
Democracies are run by people who want people to like them. And people trust their feelings and biases. Almost every elected in California has an Hispanic last name.
The democracy's Achile's heel is the legitimacy of the political class and the sanctity of the judicial rulings in the highest court. People are not going to civil war anymore when they think they are in control of their country by voting and sometimes by peaceful protests. But this system favours the status quo, and it even puts the mind of the citizen in a box.
And the political/economic class manage the lazy media with simple-minded distractions and easy distinctions, like a Punch and Judy show. Biden's latest speech was platitudinous, as though he has a sole claim to democracy. In fairness, Biden doesn't write his speeches and can barely read them.
True, but no one truly wants a civil war. They bark loud, but what % of the population will actually pick up a gun and lay down their life for a policy they disagree with? Worst case scenario is the population becomes apathetic and controlled, as russia does it. The votes still matter, and weathering 4 years of a leader you don't like seems like the logical outcome.
As soon as you used the wrongly, I knew you weren't an english speaker, butvfrom a country which uses the articles differently. Just be open about where you are from instead if pretending to be somebody from a nation you don't come from.
It's true, the situation we are in with democracy and not taking decisions to fully support Ukraine and the bigger chance Trump will be the next president of the US scares the hell out of me.I am not a religious person but this time I often think'may god help us'. I try to be optimistic but that's hard these days. Thanks Vlad for your thoughts and everything you do, with love from The Netherlands ❤
Don't be afraid that Trump will win, accept that it's already a certainty, and think about what you can do to advance your goals THAT WILL WORK (for example not more of the same tactic that the left used of just bullying and lying to everyone on the right)
I know this was mostly repeating points VV has made many times before, but as a tight summary of where we all are, it was really excellent. In fact I'm going to listen to it again to make sure I didn't miss anything.
@@VladVexlerChat I firmly agree on the importance of repetition (I, for one, certainly benefited in this instance), and thus there's no need for the apology :)
Vlad, you are the most discerning and trustworthy guide in what are, for me, otherwise alien and complex arenas. May Heaven Bless You and restore you to full health! I know it can happen! Have faith.
in my opinion, we should add into this analysis that our society became much more sectarian in terms of ideologies and political discourse. It became impossible to "discuss" with a political opponent. All of the parties are acting in maximalist aims, instead of going for the middle ground. A democracy is functioning when the vast majority of the population is uneasy about the outcome of a policy but accept it as the negotiated middle ground. These days, the political discourse is made to "crush" the opponent and get on top of the heap, out of the debate. (See the discussions around brexit and the budget discussions in the USA as two examples.)
There needs to be a level of respect for the positions of the other side in order for their to be dialogue. There's no respect coming when one side bullies the other so hard and for so long that they didn't even realize they were doing it anymore, then was caught totally surprised when a bunch of right-wing candidates that hit back hard started getting elected, followed by trying to escalate the bullying but it not working.
@@theredscourge I would not call it bullying by a single side. I do not remember for example any successive Democrat presidents in the USA. Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden. If there was bullying, we would have seen more Democrats than Republicans. No, I think it is the bias that is fed by the social media that pushes the extreme ends of the spectrum more to the front, as the algorithm favours them over moderate talks. At the end this creates the environment where you see only the purified extremism like that we saw in 30 years war that cost nearly the whole European population. What catholic and protestants were saying were 99,9% same but they killed each other for the 0,1% of the difference.
From Italy here. It IS happening: people being getting bombed by artillery in muddy trenches in Europe, in 2024. But politicians let us live in denial and we fail those who fight for us.
"Ukraine can live without russia. russia cannot live without Ukraine. " (quoting Anna from Ukraine) Regarding russia, the West must learn what Ukraine already knows.
Thanks Vlad! There’s some great self-help in here for the individual, haha. Inaction leads to lack of ability which leads to inaction. The anxiety/depression death loop for an individual person. You can’t wish yourself out of a depression. You must address the behaviors/beliefs which sustain it. Same for a democracy I guess.
Thank you Vlad, i would be happy to see you also in interaction-journalism. You do know posing questions toward yourself, well you'll be a rare interviewer
What a beautiful term… “Democratic capacity” - Solidarity - A basic level of trust - A shared fact world that we all live in This expresses something I knew, but could not express so clearly. Thank you!
The problem is. You don’t need to be an expert, to know this is the most positive EV move supporting Ukraine. Like any basic common sense of intuition, game theory, geopolitics or logic should suffice. To anyone not willing to support ukraine, i would ask them the question when should we intervene? Baltics? Europe proper? Every nation on it’s own? It is the absence of any foresight that leads us to this form of ‘understanding’, but that is i suppose more to do with human behaviour. At least some people would rather put their hands on their faces to get ‘rid’ of danger. If you don’t engage in war, war engages in you. You can’t decide not to. Maybe we got complacent. Maybe this truly is the ultimate destiny of humanity. There is some form of acceptance in understanding this. Too much complacency needs to get punished, so people learn. If people look away, they won’t look away in 10 years. By then, i’ll be on copacabana beach sipping my coconut. If there are trenches over at the Netherlands, ill be the last to occupy them, because we should have never got it that far. If we go de facto ‘all nations on their own’ i go take that game a little bit further. Everyone on their own. I care as much about the dutch as i do about Ukrainians. That also means, the game is being written in 2024 on multiple levels. I am reading the game. I am understanding the game. I will act on the rules accordinyly.
The average Trump supporter does not support Ukraine because the support America First, Ukraine about 50th, and sadly they're right to do so. Ukraine is a Europe problem, and Europe really needs to grow a pair of balls and give Ukraine the backing it needs to win. Europe has all the money and tech and manufacturing it needs to do it, it just wants US to pay the shot, and if Trump gets in, they'll admit that's not going to happen and prove to us all that they can infact do it themselves after all. And if they can't, what the hell was 30+ years of NATO funding for in the first place?
Thank you Vlad. This post struck a chord with me. I have long thought about the growing decline of cohesion in Western societies, in my own at least. It appears to me, that without some sort of existential crisis threatening a society, there is a steady fracturing of any shared narrative. Am I wrong to think that one outcome of two world wars was a bolstering of democracies and a sort of hopeful cohesion in and of the free world? However, in my lifetime, I see that slowly dissolving into tribalism, and more recently, being supercharged by the development of the internet and it's troublesome spawn, social media.
Very interesting train of thought. Maybe some deeper truth can be found by digging into it. Looking into why democracy spread so much after WW2 can be worthwhile, and how countries unity and resolve strengthens after crisis. Another example is the rwandan massacre. It transformed into a completely different country after that nightmare, like a collective realization of what must be avoided at any cost, and what must be pursued instead. Its always been strange why such wonderful things like democracy spread after ww2 and why now in peace the wests principles and ideals are slowly decaying, when it should be growing more unified and stronger. Not that russia is faring better, when its trying to turn into soviet 2.0 in a moment of despair at it's own stagnation, decay and incompetence. No use responding to this comment, unlikely to read it, just throwing out ideas.
Our lack of ability to help Ukraine, in a way that would force Russia to withdraw from Ukranian territory is very frustrating. Frightening is were we are are headed if our lack of ability to work in our own self interes isn't stopped. Please help me understand how to help ourselves collectively before we self implode.and we really are in he'll. Ukraine ifailure s a five star red alert about ourselves
For Russia, Ukraine is a territory where 15 million Russians live, Russia is fighting for its people, no one can clearly say what the United States is fighting for in Ukraine, this is the reason for the inability to help Ukraine.
thank you so much Vlad. You just woke me up to how much I was feeling despair. Odd isn't it? Perfectly cheerful and in despair. Now you've woken me up I will get busy on what i can do . Drips in th ebucket and the hole in the bottom I am really familiar with feeling, but ok, we muct not leave it at that,
Thank you Vlad 🙏🏽 I have these kinds of conversations with my children... they're very good at diving deeper than the surface level of tweets, headlines, quick fact google searches etc, and grasping the underlying causes of issues, often exploring several layers below/beside/opposite them..... but , they have to live, study, work (for my eldest) and socialise in the world as it is today. This doesn't necessarily negate the progress within our own 'round table chats', but it does have the effect of confusing the depth of understanding they've gained through considered exploration, and brings them back up to surface level issues. It's hard to avoid the noise and flurry of the world with its bombardment of information, if you've not had the benefit of living in a world with one landline, limited TV broadcasts, books, newspapers, pens, paper, typewriters, self motivated discovery, ...... endless horizons for the mind to explore. I can see how you'd be a great asset to young minds.
Because NATO physically can't outproduce Russia because western military industry is in private hands. Their leaders won't take military industry in government's hands and won't rewrite constitution to help some random corrupt American proxy
When even an old well-educated man with PhD, experienced psychoanalyst, was recruited by a KGB operative when he was a university student in the West, became a communist, visited Moscow a number of times, and have been spreading hateful Putin's propaganda against Ukraine. And there's plenty of such communists in the West, not to mention Russian speaking immigrants who watched Russia TV and was brainwashed by the propaganda. Not to forget powerful and influential people corrupted by Putin. Money talks....
So the message of the video is not to lose hope, I certainly haven’t lost hope - that would be wildly out of character. But, democracy is in decline. Though again- decline is not collapse.
What I genuinely think is happening is two things, maybe three. Firstly with inflation and increase in the cost of living in many Western countries I think governments to be able to help Ukraine more, in the sense of supplying them with enough weapons and more importantly ammunition, would require spending at a time when there are increasing domestic concerns, which means that there are priorities elsewhere, especially after the pandemic which has also added spending that needs paying back. In addition to this at the start of the war countries like the US, UK, and other NATO members were happy to give weapons to Ukraine that were sitting idle and having to be replaced soon anyway, whereas to don't them now production needs to be increased, which needed to be done a year ago, but requires money, and this money needs to come from somewhere. Secondly, there is the fact that in the US, and in the UK we are getting to the end of election cycles and so new elections are coming up. There are those on the right who say why are we doing all this? Does this really affect us? Is this our flight? And those in the right always like to use the rhetoric that couldn't this money be better spent here in our own country, and I just don't think it has been explained well enough that firstly the money allocated for Ukraine is either gifting or stockpiles of weapons that will expire in the not to distant future and it's really mostly paying American companies to produce new, updated weapons for the US military to replace them. Thirdly, and I know you might not agree with me on this one, but as far as the EU is concerned I think Hungary, and its pro Putin regime, can and will slow down and block things happening quickly in terms of getting budgets for supplying what has been promised by politicians approved and actually put into action. There are others in the EU (and UK) that I think also, despite not coming out in public and saying it, either aren't wanting Ukraine to regain its lost territory, or are too incompetent to actually put in place the measures needed to make this happen. There was always going to be a shortage of ammunition production in the EU and thus available to supply to Ukraine without wheels being taken this time last year's, maybe earlier, this I think was pointed out by Perun's channel not that long into the war and we far as I know nothing has really been done to address this. I do honestly think though that the biggest issue is the US, and more significant the Republican Party and Trump. You could, and many do say that Europe should be able to cope without the US, and I don't disagree this position, but the US is still the world's superpower with the most advanced military on the planet and I think nothing at NATO really gets done without it's say so. The EU is a trade area, it doesn't have one military, it was never, despite many of its opponents claiming it is, a centralised political entity and so for Europe think of it instead of having one battle between supporters of Ukraine and those who think what we're doing is either enough or to much, but 27+ battles, each in their own parliament, and with just one or two not be unified in backing Ukraine it's just not easy, and that's not to mention long term Russian influence in some countries some that were vassell states to the Soviet Union in the time of the Cold War, which although changed when these countries embraced democracy some of that influence is still there, and probably manifests itself more during harder times which we're in now.
How are you have though, I believe it's a product of the financial crash in 2008 and basically a lost decade of growth after that, during which people haven't seen their lives get better, many people have gotten poorer whilst those at the top are getting richer. This sets up the perfect breeding ground for bad actors to stir up nationalistic ferver to blame all these immigrants for any this has happened rather than the failure of their own policies, whilst enriching themselves and their friends at the same time. When this happens it sets the scene the politics we're seeing through the western world and that has been going on for some time now. How are "fix" this I don't know, but what I do know is that turning our backs on Ukraine won't make the problem of Putin to away, it won't make the world a safer place, and with an this it won't make our lives more prosperous, or fix the problems we have in all our countries. What really is needed is leadership and I don't know where this is coming from now, or anytime in the near future.
@TheJeanette53 We’re already contributing with funds so Ukraine can pay their troops, civil servants, etc. as well as humanitarian aid. But we could do plenty more; expell Russians from the West, ban all import of Russian goods, ban investment in Russia, ban every export to Russia, close borders and intensify NATO drills and air activity to further stretch Russian resources.
Just get good. Wise friend told me this. He also advised me he didn't just say that as the only thing. But I asked him to advise me and help me in the first place.
@@stephenhill545 well yeah, some of us from this " We " have 💩 for brains... and they like to simp for Putrid and betray democracies in their OWN ALLIANCE. & that needs to be CALLED OUT ASAP.
The main problem to me is that we don't want to risk Russia losing. In fact I'm convinced that if Western countries West of Poland were forced to chose between Russia taking Kiev and Ukraine taking Crimea, they would rather allow Russia to win. We just don't know how to handle the nuclear blackmail.
We're still in the Cold War mindset, where it was understood that even though the nuclear threat was always implicit, it would never be made overt save if either power was threatened with destruction. We don't know how to handle a mafia state that threaten nukes whenever they don't get their own way.
So true. Democracies are weak. The non-stop, 24 hour a day news cycle and instantaneous social media barrage of commentary are wearing us down. We can't handle the information overload. There's no time to draw a breath, let alone actually reflect on anything that might result in coherent and effective policy making.
I am scared...I totally admit it. Globalization, the internet, growing populations and the growing divide between ultra wealth and sustainable income have made people become residents and not citizens. The demarcation between residents and citizens ( your concept which I have taken to heart) is born out of fear. This attitude kills off democracy. People just want to be "ok" and they don't care how to get there. It is a very turbulent time to come and yes, I'm very worried.
Time flies, I have been following you for a year and a half now. I seem to notice a progress in the timeline you anticipated. About a year ago you were talking about that our democracy ships would sail into the open ocean. Now I understand we're at sea. It is possible that events are progressing the way you thought they would, only much faster?
Your insights are interesting, Vlad. The same issues with democracy and democratic capacity existed during the cold war years, and the West eventually came out on top. I had my doubts back then too.
Wtf, why did my comment get deleted? In any case, in Finland we say "Siberia teaches." If the collective West refuses to take action now, we will have to learn later and it won't be so easy anymore.
I attribute it primarily moral weakness and cowardice. Simple really. Additional factors are the moral confusion that arises from woke liberalism and a lack of national pride.
It is hard to keep up hope when you feel that democracy must win every time in order to survive whereas undemocracy only has to win once. The further the last world war recedes into the past the more that horror is forgotten, and the conviction of "never again" recedes with it. You realize that the best laws or constitution cannot protect peace and democratic order if the majority is either indifferent or works actively against it. I always thought that the simple (and wrong) solutions to complex problems is what appeals to people, but we see more and more that populist agitators offer no solutions at all and still attract a bigger and bigger following. Still, all is not lost, so let's all do what we can.
If the qualification for democracy not being in crisis is that it seems eager and willing to do hard things which could increase security in the future, then I'm not sure when it was not in crisis.
Pre-WWII, I can't think of a single democracy or republic, all the way back to Rome, that managed to restore its form of government after a fall to rule by an emperor or fascist leader. In all cases that I am aware of it took the total military defeat and occupation by an outside power to pry the fascists off of their government. I don't think the US can count on any outside power coming to save us from ourselves.
In my opinion people are looking at this from the wrong angle. At the same time they do not listen when officials let the truth slip. Start of the war Lloyd Austin (United States secretary of defense" stated that we would provide what Ukraine needs to weaken Russia to the point that it cannot attack its neighbor's again. He didn't say win and the press got mad. Winning was not the plan. Mid 2022 a former NATO commander stated, We are watching a smaller Soviet military fighting a larger Soviet military. Before the failed counteroffensive NATO Command stated that Ukraine had what it needed for the counteroffensive. Press asked former UK military commander why the offensive failed and he replied, We cannot expect them to fight like professional NATO troops. But the west does not want Ukraine. The west simply doesn't want Russia to have it, and the security lie has been exposed. Since the start of the cold war the military industrial complex has sold us the story that we have to prepare for war with the mighty USSR, then it collapsed. So they said it was Russia that is the real threat, spend billions more. Then we discover that Russia looks good on paper but that is it. Russia is a paper tiger that is left out in the rain. It is only a threat when it comes to nukes. Democracy is not failing us. It is working as it should and debate is taking place. Some still believe that Russia is a threat. Others point out that Russia cannot beat Ukraine and an attack on NATO would be suicide. Ukraine has no professional soldiers and it is a waste to send more money and gain nothing. So the debate continues. Meantime the military industrial complex knows the paper tiger is out of the bag and they need another super villain and that is China.
Interesting that I had this very conversation today with a neighbor walking our dogs. Are we getting ready to accept that our Democracy is collapsing, we did let this happen.
How can I say this nicely? Well, I‘m afraid we have to teach political education and critical thinking in schools again properly and effectively. I‘d also plead for teaching scientific thinking. I‘m afraid this generation will recognize danger no sooner as danger knocks personally at their door and threatens them directly and physically. Thank you Vlad for your explanation. This is the underlying root cause and the only medicine for establishing a healthy political society however to my opinion. Another point of discussion I suggest is how does an overall aging society decide? What are their priorities in life? What is the likely outcome of democratic decisions in an aging society? Special focus on the will to change and develop.
Which generation, actually? I know as a chronically online person from the opposite end of the globe, my perception might have nothing to do with reality, but from what i'm seeing the level of political awareness and thought in young millenials and zoomers from North America is sort of scary high compared to what i'd expect. Also i don't know if critical thinking is maybe a little overrated and passion and compassion a little underrated? I used to be way into "critical thinking" maybe 15-20 odd years ago. But when you have such uhhh pardon me bulwarks of Facts and Logic which obviously Don't Care About Your Feelings, maybe "critical thinking" has run its course, and feelings are exactly what you need.
@@SianaGearz i mean the coming generations that will attend schools and universities. You have to teach them how to recognize manipulation/propaganda. As you know it works mostly with half-truths and creating emotional outrage about a created meaning that is per se not true or not exact or not diversified. It works with judgement and blame based on wrong assumptions. I very much support that compassion and awareness gets more important in this world. What I am talking about however is abuse of people by creating outrage over false assumptions that were deliberately created and are far from reality. That is why it is crucial that you recognize it when someone tries to manipulate. That also means mind and emotion and knowledge in balance.
@@SianaGearz bc my answer disappeared I’ll try again 😏: the generation who has to be threatend personally and physically to believe smth AND act on it is mine (X and older). The generation that I suggest to be taught how manipulation works is the one that will be pupils/students next. I also wanted to point out, that while I support compassion very much, we have far too little in our societies (yet), I very strongly oppose abusing emotions by manipulation. There are techniques to effectively manipulate someone, like NLP (which can also be used in therapy, but id say mostly it is abused). Manipulation mostly works with halftruths concluding from these to the next halftruth (number of reps varying) and concludes with a straight out false statement/pseudo assumption, additionally worded in way that provokes upset/outrage etc. Another way we see often nowadays is accusing the opponent of more or less exactly what the manipulator him/herself does. Like RF often claims they never go after civilian targets, only Ukr does that. Or they were about to attack us, so they forced us to do a preemptive strike (attack) blabla. Or Ukr is planning to blow up Kahovka damm etc etc. Another popular technique is the slippery slope argument: e.g. if we let smth continue (like that - whatever) we’ll soon be doomed (drastic irrational consequence). Little examples Im sure you know, but unfortunately many fall into that trap again and again. And RF is a very special specialist with that 😏
@@Gazer873 I actually have for some reason done a course in hypnotherapy, got an alternative practitioner certificate :D that i'm not putting to any use whatsoever, but from my point of view and experience here, NLP is not a thing. People believe what they have chosen to believe. I can make someone raise their arm and do some gestures without them noticing that they were doing it, but it's a parlour trick, i'm not actually changing someone's mind. I can tell you a story but whether it works, depends on your willingness to go with it. I think emotionally mature people recognise emotional manipulation. Just like people mature in rhetoric recognise rhetorical manipulation of the kind you speak. I don't think one skill is complete without the other.
@@Gazer873 Apropos disappearing replies, well i have that problem as well in this thread apparently. :( Not sure whether it's going to pop back up or whether i need to reword it somehow. I can't even think what sort of filter i might have hit, i thought everything i said was perfectly inoffensive.
I would add that in America and maybe even in the West people are getting tired of all the ribbon cutting but no finished bridges. We have all these commitments and problems that are piling up on us, we hear about all the solutions to these problems but we never see it fully resolved. We never reach the “War is Over” moment. If citizens don’t get to feel the completion of the first national task (JFK saying let’s land on the moon and then we did) then why would they want to move on to another even bigger task.
The "climate" goals to be completed long after these politicians are out of office are especially irksome. "We know nuclear power is unpopular so we assume that civilization can be carbon neutral in X decades using solar panels and windmills. We hereby sign this treaty that ignores reality and makes us look good even though we are ignorant of energy engineering and even math."
@@AstroGremlinAmerican The climate goals will and can never be completed by government. That is because governments under the control of the legacy system and the climate goals are only achievable by utter disruption of the legacy system. Free enterprise working outside of the present order will achieve and far exceed all climate goals. This is actually being done as the governments fiddle their thumbs. There are good mathematical models that show that solar can and will (because it is cheaper than anything else) take over. The engineering is solid.
I try to negotiate the trends and news. Its hard not to get overwhelmed by petitions from groups for support to bring change...signing things to send to lobby Parliament to try and bring change...
US Leadership did not come to the American People to explain the support and consequences. Also, The current US administration has created an intense lack of security and instability of the US Southern border. Add to this economic uncertainty and huge price increases leading to economic pain in food and fuel to the every day US Citizens.......Uncertainty, insecurity, instability...leads to less will to keep sending funds and resources abroad.
I think the key problems are: 1) Professional expertise in the West has been mortally wounded by its politicisation and monetisation over the past 23 years. The media also contributed this massively by following party lines without neutral questioning. The worst of this was the Iraq War and the unrealistic trauma of the Afghan intervention. It was mainly the cynicism of this use that convinced me that Putin's manoeuvres in 2021 and early 2022 would not result in an invasion. I was completely wrong and it was the 'cry wolf' experience plus my ignorance of how poorly Putin was informed and how his own motivation worked that created this issue. 2) The West has been cursed by machine politicians devoid of common sense or ideology and motivated by a cynical desire for power. As a result voters are de-motivated, because politicians have failed to address the issues that matter to them, because those politicians have only followed the concerns of the elite who finance their campaigns. In reaction we have populists like Trump who gain popularity by saying they will address those concerns. The result is a total divorce between managerial elite classes and working classes with the former imposing their will on the latter with predictable resentment. Until we find politicians who can bridge that gap with determination and eloquence, the mess will continue. The Covid crisis was an example of weak politicians using fear and fake reliance on science with suppression of opposing viewpoints (rather than taking on those arguments with logic and evidence) - this showed arrogance and laziness of huge proportions. We need honesty in the West to tell us we are at war with Putin albeit a Cold War and we need to gear our economies accordingly. At the moment Putin still sees only weakness and that is incredibly dangerous. If we have a stalemate cease-fire in Ukraine, Putin will simply re-arm and have a crack at the West in another area and this could provoke an utter disaster. Thanks to you Vlad we have intellectual tools to see this more clearly.
It seems as though we shouldn't need experts to tell us that it's in US interests to support Ukraine to victory. It seems like the sort of thing that anyone should be able to see. Then there's the inevitable march of regress of our institutions, which still sounds to me like an epistemologically-equal mirror to the inevitable march of progress that a lot of people like to imagine.
Carl Schmitt had some thoughts relating to parliamentarian-type democratic gridlock such as has resulted in the current suspension of US & EU aid to Ukraine.
I think you had a point today. That a certain denocratic rule may have more or less capacity. Less sophisticated put as "strength" or "weakness". Of course this also applies to other forms of governance of states, but becoming aware of this phenomenon I think really could help a lot of us.
I think you are spot on in regard to there being that hole! Also, in regard to the idea of a manufactured hope might never the less have some value, even if it is just a manufactured hope . And one area I think one might manufacture such a hope is in technology and innovation. For in past wars technology has been much more than a mere manufactured hope but a major factor in shaping the outcome of that war, such as the development of radar and proximity fuses and cracking the enigma code, and, of course, the A bomb, which did not win the war but did end it. Thus in addition to normal military figure of merit one might employ in developing weapon systems and tactics such as probability of kill (Pk), probability of hit (Ph), there is the Pr, Probability of showing up in the news cycle, i.e. PR. And so the problem from a PR standpoint is that even new technologies and tactics, such as using commercial drones does get in the news cycles, they do so only for a while, until they become old news. Thus the west might keep developing weapons that might prove to be game changers as well as war winners but also might develop lesser technologies, but maybe easier and quicker to develop that might help gain points in the PR wars and reset the newness meter in the news cycles. For example the drone ships are not only wrecking havoc on the Russian Baltic fleet but made great news. So maybe that means make even more of those and more drones! But maybe some of that money and effort might be better used to develop new stuff, that might not be all that more effective, in that their is the law of diminishing returns on making things better, where one might reach a point that good enough will do, but that the added benefits of resetting the newness value might justify adding that additional level of capability in that benefits in the PR department and even the use of stunts might have their value there. For example from a military standpoint Doolittle's raid on Tokyo has no real effect. But form a PR standpoint it had a huge effect, so much so that it led Yamamoto to plan on taking Midway, and we all know how that turned out. But the US DOD is not in the business of affect PR nor should it be. But there needs to be some agency with some clout designated to do that and thus help spawn the development of there potential PR weapons that (who knows) some might turn out to be real game changers after all and not just stunts!
And one potential problem in the US military is that it seems (based on a number of comments I have heard from senior military leaders) to equate its special forces with the idea that Sun Tzu had of irregular forces. But one might argue the special forces are just that, special, and yes, necessary, very necessary, but maybe not sufficient. For those civilians making drones for Ukraine seem to be more what one would call an irregular force, or the Taliban use Toyota trucks and Honda motorcycles. So can a regular force work to support an irregular one. Well, the British did that in WW2 by supporting partisan fighters in the occupied countries. And such a force used Lysanders which could land and take off at night on short strips in France to carry in personnel and supplies and take back people, and not so much Spitfire fighters and Lancaster bombers. Thus this irregular force might need irregular force compatible gear as well. So perhaps there needs to be a irregular support group in the government that operate on different rules to fund, procure, support, and evaluate new technologies geared to help up the PR value of the war as well as potentially the war fighting abilities as well. Here is one example: Using armed gyrocopters (which are relatively inexpensive, easy to modify, easy to fly, can take off on short fields, can fly slow, are much cheaper to operate than helicopters, but other than China and Columbia have been spurned for military use by most countries for more capable, and also more expensive platforms) in rear areas to help shoot down drones attacking civilian targets. Will that work? Well, maybe or maybe not, but it might be worth a try. But that try could be filmed and (even if the results are marginal) they could be touted on CNN showing that innovation is not dead or stagnate but alive and well. So this irregular procurement force could buy a few gyrocopter and then make some modifications, do some quick filed testing and then get a camera crew and do some limited combat operations to see how well they work, and get some good PR from the process. Now if some technology looks really promising one might not want to piecemeal its adoption, as say the British did with the tank in WW1. But then one can develop such technologies along similar lines but with maybe a different PR plan where one can feed in a lot of disinformation as well. And there are many other examples I could cite as well (and I have a whole Padlet corkboard devoted to them), but (hopefully) this one example get s the basic idea across!
Or another way of putting this, is perhaps now a days wars or sort of like RUclips channels in that one needs to ever keep coming up with new content to maintain viewership!
Also, if MAGA Republicans are one of the major advocates of cutting future aid to Ukraine it might be worth directing any PR to counter that to better resonate with the MAGA crowd. For example I have proposed employing e-bikes beefed up with some light weight armor and even a gun as a mean of providing extra mobility where larger vehicles have problems operating and have found that it seems many think bikes are kids stuff and scoff at the idea (never mind that deer hunters are now employing E-bikes as well as the Ukrainians are now using them as well, as quite successfully did the Japanese in the rapid conquest of Malaysia in WW2). But another idea is to convert old junk trucks into remote controlled monster trucks (beefing the tires up to be more mine resistant and filling the truck with sandbags and such to make it harder to destroy and maybe driving them in reverse so the engines face away from the enemy) and using swarms of these to plow through mine fields. These could also carry Mk-82 500lb bombs and thus act as a kamikaze truck as well... and the US has scads of old MK-82 just sitting in warehouses... an congress need not have to pay for Biden to send these to Ukraine. Now the MAGA crowd might also scoff at this idea as well, being something new. But if they actually saw this being done, monster trucks might better resonate with them than say e-bikes and as such might take a bit of the wind out of their sails in regard to cutting aid... or maybe not. But the idea is that modern war (and maybe all war) is a bit theatre (or theater of the absurd) and certain political leaders (e.g. FDR and Churchill) understood that and knew how to play those cards as the situation might warrant such as to get Lend Lease approved amidst a country with a huge isolationist bent. So the idea here is that there may be plenty of things to try and do other than giving up in despair!
Is a lack of strategy a symptom of disunion? Is fluctuation between union and disunion a normal social process? Looking back over the past 1,000 years of European history, I see social union and disunion as the most prevalent process.
I disagree. The assumption here is democracies have control. The fact is they lost it to the corporations years ago. It isn't democratic capacity that matters, but market capacity.
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"protect us from anti-democratic politicians", and who decides who are anti-democratic?....... the left. No thanks, don't protect me from freedom by means of the authoritarianism you claim to fight against.
🙏
Democracy is gay and weak lol
🐻🇷🇺☦️
@@sullathehutt7720 There is only one reason why you would feel the need to attack others for their sexuality: seems you are unsure about yours. Unless you have some serious issues with whom you would like to bed ( maybe you are not getting any?) there is no reason you would care about whom other citizens want to bed.
Proud of all our citizens in democracy!
We have to get away from the "Either it's perfect or it's garbage" mindset. Neither perfection nor garbage are real. We have to work with what we've got.
I completely agree. How many trash their country or even the west, cos it’s not perfect and thereby open the door for something far worse.
Sure, everything is only ever "refactoring" as software engineers know. However, we should rely on "first principles" and not on hallucinated concepts or beliefs for our decision making.
Same mindset with the arms shipments. Is weapon system X going to win the war? Is it? Is it?
Well, it's never gonna be perfect or garbage. But NATO can't physically supply Ukraine enough weapons to outgun Russia. Also some western leaders will always be against helping random American proxies. Some western leaders will also want to trade with Russia again as soon as possible to boost both of their economies
@@yellowtunes2756 Fortunately, the Russians have provided huge shipments of gear to Ukraine. Botski reported, may you soon be drafted.
Thank you, Vlad. I’m 82, live in California, and I’ve been steadily supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian volunteers with cash donations, daily prayers, and letters to President Biden, my Senators and my Representative, and phone messages to Speaker Mike Johnson. Last night I went to bed crying, because my efforts DO feel like dropping bits of water into a bucket with holes. I try to fabricate hope, but I’m so angry with the Republicans, and am embarrassed about the U.S. lack of a spine. I don’t want “partial success.” I grew up respecting our democracy and have believed it will come back and be OK. Now, for the first time in my life, I do feel scared. And I guess I’ve not accepted the possibility that Trump could win. Horrors!! Thanks for your sobering assessment. What more can I do?
God bless you, Carol. You have our gratitude. Sometimes even a drop can break a dam.
I'm a Californian too. I share your experience of this, and Ukraine support. You are doing what you can. God bless you.
at 82 your not very smart if you really checked on whats going on you wouldnt give a sht about ukraine
As a Ukrainian I am thankful to you and other Americans who stand by Ukraine's side because this is the right thing to do to support a country fighting off an agression.
If I understand correctly Vlad's point of view about the democracy, you do exactly what's needs to be done - engage in citizen politics. You should do that regardless of who is the president or senator or representative
Perhaps you need to spend less time preaching to the choir and more time reaching out to the those who oppose Ukraine funding. Biden and his admin ignore such talk because they know they don't have the votes to get it through congress. Republican congressmen ignore it because they don't have the support of their base to allow them to vote for it. Democrat supporters such as yourselves need to reach out to Republican voters, admit that you know that the media and politicians on your side lied for 4 years about Trump-Russia collusion to hamstring his agenda, but plead with them that despite that, Russia actually does pose a threat to the West, and needs to be stopped before they invade more countries. Unfortunately, that will require a level of empathy for Trump voters that most Biden voters no longer possess after years of conditioning and lies by the media. That is not to say that you have to agree with Trump's agenda or like him as a person, but you guys have a lot of admitting to Trump supporters that you know a lot of what was said about him were lies before Trump voters will be willing to listen to anything you have to say again. They have to feel that the truth matters to you before they're willing to consider that you might have some truths to share with them that they don't already have.
Totally agree - democracy is in crisis, I brought my children up to know that democracy is not a ‘given’ and that every generation will have to fight for it: I think history is poorly understood and ( I am based in the U.K.) many people do not even know who their MP is and how our democracy works. We need to teach young people how it works, what the alternatives are, why we need to protect democracy. How important voting is etc, it’s hard to protect something if you don’t know how it works. Thank you Vlad for what you are doing - I hope you are keeping well.
Many entering the U.S. at the moment weren't brought up that way. Not sure if the immigrants in the UK could care any less who is their MP. Those in America have high expectations (Dickens reference) of what their new country will do for them, not what they can do for their new country (JFK reference).
no such thing as democracy
My MP is Penny Mordaunt…😐 Before that it was Mark Harper. When I wrote to him about an issue that was causing safety concerns on our roads, he gave me a full and detailed explanation on what was the reason, what was intended to be done and took TIME to talk to me. The action alone made me feel the authority was concerned and not dismissive of my voice. I may not have been totally happy with the answer, but he registered my concerns as my representative and I appreciated that.
@@frankrenda2519Says you.
go and vote about immigration in your so called democracy i will bet you cannot.@@georgemorley1029
It's absolutely a lack of leadership. We've had complete deficient communication from the administration on our goals, how we plan to achieve them, and updates on the progress of said plan. We also have had no clear presentation of why those goals serve our national interests. I am probably on the hawkish end of support for Ukraine, so I will think most action is insufficient, but the leadership shown by the administration thus far has been anemic at best and probably closer to apathetic.
Biden blurts out what he blurts out. Then his team members "walk back" select utterances. He blurted out "no boots on the ground" in Afghanistan, then in Ukraine. He has a thing about boots. Wants people to think he's smart (and nice) but was passed over for Hillary in 2016. And now the DNC are backing him and Kamala. Were they bribed by Trump?
I hate the only options we have is between vaguely supporting Ukraine and wanting to leave them to their fate. Where is our generation's Ronald Ragan or someone who will unleash the arsenal of Democracy?
We've been getting more of that from Nikki Haley than we've been getting from the current administration. And I say this as a lifelong committed Democrat.
I agree that there has been a near complete absence of leadership on this from Biden, and for me, it's been absolutely agonizing to watch, especially with the knowledge that it will likely get much, much worse.
Weak leadership would be there as one of my bets, also. However, I think another main issue here is radical dysfunction of democratic processes. This covers many things, such as representation, political accountability (or lack thereof), and at the core of it, lack of a common shared ideal of what is fair and what is not based on a social contract that the citizenry, not the elites, subscribe to. In other words, the beneficiaries of the western democracies see no problems with the current social order while there is growing discontent among the western public and there is a tendency to marginalize such discontent. Dropping rates of electoral participation are a sign of this.
Biden hasn't been perfect, but remember that people were expecting worse, both from the US and Europe. That's how bad the West's position on Ukraine was before 2022. Nobody in the West wanted to deal with Ukraine and confront Russia, everyone was celebrating the supposed end of major land wars on the European continent, and European countries were cutting military budgets and industry like if there was nothing to worry about.
Vlad's theory has many problems, one of which is just that you don't need high social trust to produce ammunition. Russia doesn't have great social trust. The problem is that Western Europe has destroyed its military-industrial base for decades, and only now are factories starting to be built or expanded, but it takes years for these things to happen. The most serious strategic error was the complacency of thinking that Europe did not need to have a military anymore after the collapse of the USSR, or thinking that the USA could do everything. Hopefully now Europe understands that they need their own military power.
Nice one! I do feel a big issue in the west is very dualistic thinking, where any issue that a "left" administration supports automatically becomes bad for the "right", and vice-versa. So instead of having the power of a democracy on certain issue like a X vector, we have it more like x/2 - x/2 =0, where two opposite vectors negate each other.
So many people are overloaded with information, and fun videos and games, that political stance is arrived at quickly, like going to the bathroom. As a result, political thought for most is a word for brown stuff.
That seems more like a US thing.
It’s called bipartisanship. It’s the norm in most modern civilisations but in America the lack of it is not only baffling, it’s sickening.
It's hard to come together to support a cause when the other side have systematically been abused for nearly a decade for not agreeing with everything the other side claims
Indeed, it is a feature, not a bug. In a true two party system it is hard to significantly pull in either direction. It helps regulate extremes in governorship. Unfortunately democracies require a public consensus to operate effectively. That consensus usually takes something immenent and dire.
I am a sailor. For peaceful sleep i do a lot of inspection on my boat to prevent leaking holes and i repair before the problem is to big. Best regards to you Vlad from Caribbean
My sleep is more peaceful. I live on land.😃
@@AstroGremlinAmerican well, have fun!
Right now, Western Democracies are short on leaders, but long on placeholders.
I can sadly confirm it from Hungary.
Did you miss Vlad's point on that, or just disagree with it? If disagree, why?
@@imipak23 Thing is, we have an interest of conflict.
In the past decades, governments in Europe have been a menace to their own population. You see this in Germany and England for example. So do we want leaders?
No, we don't. The best course of action has been to vote for the most inept politicians and coalitions of parties as this greatly limits the damage they can cause to the population.
But in regards to Ukraine, we want competent political leaders that do what is necessary.
Naturally, we can't have it both ways.
to.. @peterkiviat9969
Sounds like Russia!
@@svr5423 The truth is, democracies do not usually prefer great leaders, but have always been attracted to politicians who stay out of their way, and muddle along. It is only in times of crises, that democracies are attracted to leaders who will rally them. As soon as the crisis is over, people prefer to elect those who are keyed into their comfort zones.
Hope you're feeling better Vlad...after all the serious stuff will you play the piano for us !? Warm wishes from England.Jay
Maybe one day on the classical music channel!
Looking forward to that ! On a serious note regarding your discussion it is perhaps as simple as the West not truly understanding the reality of a future following a defeat of Ukraine and how that will directly affect our existence in Europe. I believe many of us feel distanced and protected from a dictator like Putin regardless of his possible destruction of Ukraine and of democracy. Many people do not believe that his expansionist ambitions will extend to more territory than Ukraine...and the people who really have the power have only one question which is 'What's in it for us ?' There is also the distraction of Gaza...if I could wave a magic wand I would stop ALL funds to Israel, and would channel much more financial support to Ukraine. It is an accepted fact that we are not funding Ukraine to win but are possibly giving only enough support to ensure a delayed defeat. One might say therefore that we in the West and the USA are complicit in ensuring the success of Israel and Russia. It is profoundly shameful. @@VladVexlerChat
I'd say two reasons. 1. The west remembers going into Afghanistan and Iraq. They gave money to the governments. It wss then later foind thata majority of ot ended up in corruption. 2. People are afraid Russia will use nuclear weapons if we give too much. I say help Ukraine with everything it needs.
Do laypeople somehow not realize that China and NK are major threats also? Jesus, you people and your tunnel vision...
I don't think there is any comparison with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, those wars were highly controversial and debatable conflicts done in the name of bringing democracy to some countries populated by people that are openly hostile to western values and virtues.
In comparison the war in Ukraine is an existential threat, a medieval style land grab and forceful enslavement of sovereign democratic nation, a population that aspires for the western values and liberties. As for corruption there will always be corruption, you can be sure there was corruption in USA and UK even during WW2.
I think this fear of Russia using nuclear weapons is mostly manufactured by Russia. Aiding Ukraine does not directly threaten Russia's power structure, while our response to a nuclear attack definitely would threaten their power structure.
@@BaddeJimme you think the regime could survive being kicked back to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders? I don't know if it could, but I agree Putin thinks not.
@@imipak23 I think it is at least possible for Putin to be expelled from Ukraine without him losing power, while an exchange of nukes would guarantee an end to Putin's regime.
Thanks for this! It seems intuitively true to me. It's helpful to understand the timidity with which 'the West' has acted towards Ukraine. Anything that lowers my stress level helps me to work more effectively.
I work well under stress. The trick is to not allow strain, it can be quite bad even though one's brain is the only cause.
@@AstroGremlinAmerican I know I can work well under stress, but I find Im much more cool and productive about it when I understand the constraints and environment im working with.
Thats why I like videos like Vlads, they allow me to grow understanding, which makes me more confident and calm.
See, this is why democracy loses. It produces weak, emotionally frail people like yourself. Lol
This explanation just feels right. I sometimes can't shake the idea that what we experience might feel similar to what people in the 1930s might have felt when democracies were struggling, the international order was crumbling and autocratic regimes were on the rise. Even during the rise of Hitler many had this "It probably won't get too bad" attitude. The missing democratic capacity in France, the UK led to Munich 1938 and Appeasement in my view. People only finally were ready to face facts when there was no escaping it no more and it was obvious war was coming. Let's hope we wake up earlier.
I would sum it up differently. Economic desperation led to new leaders. Some believed that the new leader in German was going to be a "nice guy."
If Trump wins, that is the fastest way to end the war. Why? Because Europe will realize it's on its own, panic at first, but then remember it has had 30+ years of NATO cooperation to prepare for this, and then start acting like it. But this is only going to happen that fast once they realize they can't just wait for the US to foot the bill.
It also lead to betrayal of Baltic countries that were occupied in 1940 and left under USSR occupation for 50 years. Betrayed by West
Oh please. The Soviets, Chinese, Yugoslavians, etc did all the leg work in WW2. "Democracy" lmao. Whatever.
It truly breaks my heart to see Ukraine not get what it needs. The west is condemning Ukrainians to death.
Prolonging the war with weapons is causing deaths. No-one wants to save lifes with negotiations for some reason
They need competent generals and the West cannot provide that.
Bit late now with so many casualties on both sides! Tragic
only in ukraine@@benhudson4014
@@Rtg5637What can western generals do without air support, with weapons supplied too late or too little???
I don't have context for this, but I hope you know how loved you are.
We need to get our act together as the western world and I’m starting this as an American who leans center right
Center right? That was a democrat in 2000. First, we need to help the world's poor by letting them come live with us. It will make them magically different.
As a lefty, I respect anyone (left or right) who values the most important method of governing, democracy. I'm from Australia, we had the Teal wave, a bunch of moderates who sent the conservative party a message, which they ended up completely ignoring with Dutton.
@@edgarwalk5637 "Democracy" is becoming a hard sell to many Trump supporters when every time the Democrat officials and pundits open their mouths to say "our Democracy" they actually mean "our political, media, and cultural hegemony", and when they act blatantly anti-democratically so often, such as when they refused to give a single penny for US border security once Trump lost the house, and how they're trying to throw him and all his prominent supporters into either prison or bankruptcy due to legal fees and remove him from the ballot.
Agree. We used to have a common basis of facts and culture, and I'm not sure how to get back to that, and I'm not sure democracy can function without it. (I'm a center-left American).
The important thing is that you are in the centre and not to the extreme of either side.
It is complacency... and the West not challenging their fears!
I'm always so happy when i get a notification about a new video. It's like unexpectedly finding out there's a last piece of cake.
💛
Very glad to be bailing water with this beautiful community!
In the US aid to Ukraine is held up by 7 Republicans . Out of a total 535 members of Congress. Meanwhile, 2/3 of the population favors continued assistance. So much for representative government.
yep it’s not a majority in the public or congress it’s a cynical clique of the most authoritarian possible.
Can't they just be outvoted if everybody else votes for military aid?
@@stephenhill545exactly, the Democrats are perfectly capable of voting with the pro-Ukrainian majority of Republicans to continue funding Ukraine
@@stephenhill545nope, the speaker in the house and the senate majority leader set the agenda. It’s literally impossible to get a vote unless the leadership allows it. Basically 1 person in the entire country is holding this hostage because 2-3 other people might with draw support from him causing him to lose the speakership.
How, on earth, were there ever so many trillions and trillions for Iraq and Afghanistan?
Politicking. And a very notable lack of algorithms and excess of unnecessary political discourse caused by them.
Vlad, thank you for your words🙏🏼. Today, on the third anniversary of the worst attack to the Capitol by a mob organized by the former president of my country, I’m feeling under the weather because he has not yet faced justice, but giving up is not an option, so tomorrow I will start my activism again, to help candidates that will support democracy and its institutions.
He's going to win the next election. As a European, your country is a mess, and Trump is the least of your concerns.
People actively avoid America these days. It's not a go-to destination for many in Europe these days.
Everywhere is riddled with crime and poverty.
I agree completely.
Right on!! That's the only way we can change it!!
A day that will live in Hyperbole
As a foreigner it seems to me that your present President is a complete failure, targeting Trump does not change that but it does divert attention from your present problems.
sensitive, humane and thoughtful as always vlad
Thanks so much !
I only feel what touches me. All else is illusion. This attitude is as endemic 'in the West', as it is in 'the East'. Until it appears on your doorstep. Then you are trapped.
And it's feelings, taking priority in our schools when it was discovered that many students aren't so good at thinking.
To put yourself in somebody else's shoes can be taught to nearly everybody.
Your "a ship with a couple of holes in the middle of the sea during a storm" analogy made me think of a film I watched last year, titled "Nowhere". It is a Spanish film, and in Spanish (but available on a well known streaming site with English subtitles), and it is not a ship/boat, but a shipping container which fell from a ship that she is stuck inside, but in it you can see the heroine of the film literally do just that...deal with being stuck in the middle of the sea in a "boat" filling with water from the holes in it. Though in her case it was already a "sinking ship at sea", not just a "ship with a few holes in it that can be fixed before it becomes a sinking ship". She makes her choice after accepting her reality (and yes, its a thriller, so not everything follows logic & everything is exaggerated to make it more thrilling, but that is the luxury of fiction), and tries to get some of the water entering exit her "boat", not just "accept things as they are without any (counter) action from her"
I also like the quote from Miep Gies, one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank)s family): "“But even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room.” Just replace "ordinary secretary" (true in her case) with "ordinary civilian" to be less precise. There was a wonderful TV series about her & the Frank family released last year which got its title from this very saying/quote by her. A small light. (cause a hundred of "small lights" make up already a "big fire". A million of small donations create lots of funds. Many small deeds by "single, small people" can/will lead to "big, important things". ON their own every single persons small deed may mean not that much in the grand scheme of things, but all put together...that is another story already. And just cause we/some might not see the big picture & how their small deed can help, does not mean "small deeds" are "pointless".
Thank you Vlad. This video means a lot to me.
I am grateful.
It's almost absurd how democracies fuel their inability to act by not being able to act. It feels like the less they do of the right thing the more they're constrained in their next action. And the cycle continues until no action is performed at all, and trust disappears completely.
Update: uh, a similar but more elaborate point is made at the end of the video; I should've finished the video before typing...
Democracies are run by people who want people to like them. And people trust their feelings and biases. Almost every elected in California has an Hispanic last name.
You hit the nail on the head here. My feelings are understood now.
Thank you for sharing your reflections, insight and kindness of heart Vlad. Thom
The democracy's Achile's heel is the legitimacy of the political class and the sanctity of the judicial rulings in the highest court.
People are not going to civil war anymore when they think they are in control of their country by voting and sometimes by peaceful protests. But this system favours the status quo, and it even puts the mind of the citizen in a box.
And the political/economic class manage the lazy media with simple-minded distractions and easy distinctions, like a Punch and Judy show. Biden's latest speech was platitudinous, as though he has a sole claim to democracy. In fairness, Biden doesn't write his speeches and can barely read them.
True, but no one truly wants a civil war. They bark loud, but what % of the population will actually pick up a gun and lay down their life for a policy they disagree with? Worst case scenario is the population becomes apathetic and controlled, as russia does it. The votes still matter, and weathering 4 years of a leader you don't like seems like the logical outcome.
As soon as you used the wrongly, I knew you weren't an english speaker, butvfrom a country which uses the articles differently. Just be open about where you are from instead if pretending to be somebody from a nation you don't come from.
@@stephenhill545 I am not pretending anything. I am an English speaker, but not a native one. I do not understand what are you trying to argue about.
It's true, the situation we are in with democracy and not taking decisions to fully support Ukraine and the bigger chance Trump will be the next president of the US scares the hell out of me.I am not a religious person but this time I often think'may god help us'. I try to be optimistic but that's hard these days.
Thanks Vlad for your thoughts and everything you do, with love from The Netherlands ❤
Don't be afraid that Trump will win, accept that it's already a certainty, and think about what you can do to advance your goals THAT WILL WORK (for example not more of the same tactic that the left used of just bullying and lying to everyone on the right)
How perspective are you, this is brilliant, I thank you.
I know this was mostly repeating points VV has made many times before, but as a tight summary of where we all are, it was really excellent. In fact I'm going to listen to it again to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Sorry to keep repeating myself. I think repeating yourself is sometimes important.
@@VladVexlerChat I firmly agree on the importance of repetition (I, for one, certainly benefited in this instance), and thus there's no need for the apology :)
Thanks for the update and views
Vlad, you are the most discerning and trustworthy guide in what are, for me, otherwise alien and complex arenas. May Heaven Bless You and restore you to full health! I know it can happen! Have faith.
That means the world thank you so much!
Thank you Vlad
in my opinion, we should add into this analysis that our society became much more sectarian in terms of ideologies and political discourse. It became impossible to "discuss" with a political opponent. All of the parties are acting in maximalist aims, instead of going for the middle ground.
A democracy is functioning when the vast majority of the population is uneasy about the outcome of a policy but accept it as the negotiated middle ground. These days, the political discourse is made to "crush" the opponent and get on top of the heap, out of the debate. (See the discussions around brexit and the budget discussions in the USA as two examples.)
There needs to be a level of respect for the positions of the other side in order for their to be dialogue. There's no respect coming when one side bullies the other so hard and for so long that they didn't even realize they were doing it anymore, then was caught totally surprised when a bunch of right-wing candidates that hit back hard started getting elected, followed by trying to escalate the bullying but it not working.
@@theredscourge I would not call it bullying by a single side. I do not remember for example any successive Democrat presidents in the USA. Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden.
If there was bullying, we would have seen more Democrats than Republicans. No, I think it is the bias that is fed by the social media that pushes the extreme ends of the spectrum more to the front, as the algorithm favours them over moderate talks.
At the end this creates the environment where you see only the purified extremism like that we saw in 30 years war that cost nearly the whole European population.
What catholic and protestants were saying were 99,9% same but they killed each other for the 0,1% of the difference.
Lots of love to you Vlad!
Thank you as usual, Vlad. Love and best wishes for your health.
Love back your way!
Spot on!
From Italy here. It IS happening: people being getting bombed by artillery in muddy trenches in Europe, in 2024. But politicians let us live in denial and we fail those who fight for us.
Very good, thank you for beeing nuanced and not bombastic
Thanks
"Ukraine can live without russia. russia cannot live without Ukraine. " (quoting Anna from Ukraine) Regarding russia, the West must learn what Ukraine already knows.
Thanks Vlad! There’s some great self-help in here for the individual, haha. Inaction leads to lack of ability which leads to inaction. The anxiety/depression death loop for an individual person.
You can’t wish yourself out of a depression. You must address the behaviors/beliefs which sustain it. Same for a democracy I guess.
Depression is a tough nut to crack. The cure takes what depression takes away.
Thank you Vlad, i would be happy to see you also in interaction-journalism. You do know posing questions toward yourself, well you'll be a rare interviewer
Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative and up-to-date video.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
I somwtimes find Vlad's videos a bit of a struggle to follow- this one i found straightforward and powerful.
Thank you Vlad. As always lovely to hear your reason and to be provoked to think differently and broaden perspectives.
What a beautiful term… “Democratic capacity”
- Solidarity
- A basic level of trust
- A shared fact world that we all live in
This expresses something I knew, but could not express so clearly. Thank you!
Thank you for being here!
The problem is. You don’t need to be an expert, to know this is the most positive EV move supporting Ukraine. Like any basic common sense of intuition, game theory, geopolitics or logic should suffice. To anyone not willing to support ukraine, i would ask them the question when should we intervene? Baltics? Europe proper? Every nation on it’s own? It is the absence of any foresight that leads us to this form of ‘understanding’, but that is i suppose more to do with human behaviour. At least some people would rather put their hands on their faces to get ‘rid’ of danger. If you don’t engage in war, war engages in you. You can’t decide not to. Maybe we got complacent. Maybe this truly is the ultimate destiny of humanity. There is some form of acceptance in understanding this. Too much complacency needs to get punished, so people learn. If people look away, they won’t look away in 10 years. By then, i’ll be on copacabana beach sipping my coconut. If there are trenches over at the Netherlands, ill be the last to occupy them, because we should have never got it that far. If we go de facto ‘all nations on their own’ i go take that game a little bit further. Everyone on their own. I care as much about the dutch as i do about Ukrainians. That also means, the game is being written in 2024 on multiple levels. I am reading the game. I am understanding the game. I will act on the rules accordinyly.
The average Trump supporter does not support Ukraine because the support America First, Ukraine about 50th, and sadly they're right to do so. Ukraine is a Europe problem, and Europe really needs to grow a pair of balls and give Ukraine the backing it needs to win. Europe has all the money and tech and manufacturing it needs to do it, it just wants US to pay the shot, and if Trump gets in, they'll admit that's not going to happen and prove to us all that they can infact do it themselves after all. And if they can't, what the hell was 30+ years of NATO funding for in the first place?
At this point, almost every country should be on their own
Thank you Vlad. This post struck a chord with me. I have long thought about the growing decline of cohesion in Western societies, in my own at least. It appears to me, that without some sort of existential crisis threatening a society, there is a steady fracturing of any shared narrative. Am I wrong to think that one outcome of two world wars was a bolstering of democracies and a sort of hopeful cohesion in and of the free world? However, in my lifetime, I see that slowly dissolving into tribalism, and more recently, being supercharged by the development of the internet and it's troublesome spawn, social media.
Very interesting train of thought. Maybe some deeper truth can be found by digging into it. Looking into why democracy spread so much after WW2 can be worthwhile, and how countries unity and resolve strengthens after crisis. Another example is the rwandan massacre. It transformed into a completely different country after that nightmare, like a collective realization of what must be avoided at any cost, and what must be pursued instead. Its always been strange why such wonderful things like democracy spread after ww2 and why now in peace the wests principles and ideals are slowly decaying, when it should be growing more unified and stronger. Not that russia is faring better, when its trying to turn into soviet 2.0 in a moment of despair at it's own stagnation, decay and incompetence. No use responding to this comment, unlikely to read it, just throwing out ideas.
thank you
Always good thoughts, but particularly well organized and expressed here today. There is hope indeed.
The best ever. In fact, the best video I've ever seen on any topic. But I always write that.
Thank you so very much. Your explanation came to me now right when I struggled with this sluggishness in western politics. You are godsend.
Our lack of ability to help Ukraine, in a way that would force Russia to withdraw from Ukranian territory is very frustrating. Frightening is were we are are headed if our lack of ability to work in our own self interes isn't stopped. Please help me understand how to help ourselves collectively before we self implode.and we really are in he'll. Ukraine ifailure s a five star red alert about ourselves
For Russia, Ukraine is a territory where 15 million Russians live, Russia is fighting for its people, no one can clearly say what the United States is fighting for in Ukraine, this is the reason for the inability to help Ukraine.
Here in Brasil, my country is fighting very hard to keep democracy alive.
Incredibly sad and frustrating
Love to you also. Sometimes all i need is to listen to a good man speak.
Someone needs to tell the US that “Bipartisan” doesn’t mean a sexually adventurous Yugoslavian commando.
thank you so much Vlad. You just woke me up to how much I was feeling despair. Odd isn't it? Perfectly cheerful and in despair. Now you've woken me up I will get busy on what i can do . Drips in th ebucket and the hole in the bottom I am really familiar with feeling, but ok, we muct not leave it at that,
Thank you Vlad 🙏🏽
I have these kinds of conversations with my children... they're very good at diving deeper than the surface level of tweets, headlines, quick fact google searches etc, and grasping the underlying causes of issues, often exploring several layers below/beside/opposite them..... but , they have to live, study, work (for my eldest) and socialise in the world as it is today.
This doesn't necessarily negate the progress within our own 'round table chats', but it does have the effect of confusing the depth of understanding they've gained through considered exploration, and brings them back up to surface level issues.
It's hard to avoid the noise and flurry of the world with its bombardment of information, if you've not had the benefit of living in a world with one landline, limited TV broadcasts, books, newspapers, pens, paper, typewriters, self motivated discovery, ...... endless horizons for the mind to explore.
I can see how you'd be a great asset to young minds.
Loved the point about "fabricated hope/optimism"
Serious question: Why did you lose hope?
Democracy is under threat, for sure, but what makes you think it is a "lost cause"?
Because NATO physically can't outproduce Russia because western military industry is in private hands. Their leaders won't take military industry in government's hands and won't rewrite constitution to help some random corrupt American proxy
When even an old well-educated man with PhD, experienced psychoanalyst, was recruited by a KGB operative when he was a university student in the West, became a communist, visited Moscow a number of times, and have been spreading hateful Putin's propaganda against Ukraine. And there's plenty of such communists in the West, not to mention Russian speaking immigrants who watched Russia TV and was brainwashed by the propaganda. Not to forget powerful and influential people corrupted by Putin. Money talks....
So the message of the video is not to lose hope, I certainly haven’t lost hope - that would be wildly out of character. But, democracy is in decline. Though again- decline is not collapse.
The cliffhanger is real on this one...
that 1 second in the beginning 🤣🤣🤣
What I genuinely think is happening is two things, maybe three. Firstly with inflation and increase in the cost of living in many Western countries I think governments to be able to help Ukraine more, in the sense of supplying them with enough weapons and more importantly ammunition, would require spending at a time when there are increasing domestic concerns, which means that there are priorities elsewhere, especially after the pandemic which has also added spending that needs paying back. In addition to this at the start of the war countries like the US, UK, and other NATO members were happy to give weapons to Ukraine that were sitting idle and having to be replaced soon anyway, whereas to don't them now production needs to be increased, which needed to be done a year ago, but requires money, and this money needs to come from somewhere.
Secondly, there is the fact that in the US, and in the UK we are getting to the end of election cycles and so new elections are coming up. There are those on the right who say why are we doing all this? Does this really affect us? Is this our flight? And those in the right always like to use the rhetoric that couldn't this money be better spent here in our own country, and I just don't think it has been explained well enough that firstly the money allocated for Ukraine is either gifting or stockpiles of weapons that will expire in the not to distant future and it's really mostly paying American companies to produce new, updated weapons for the US military to replace them.
Thirdly, and I know you might not agree with me on this one, but as far as the EU is concerned I think Hungary, and its pro Putin regime, can and will slow down and block things happening quickly in terms of getting budgets for supplying what has been promised by politicians approved and actually put into action. There are others in the EU (and UK) that I think also, despite not coming out in public and saying it, either aren't wanting Ukraine to regain its lost territory, or are too incompetent to actually put in place the measures needed to make this happen.
There was always going to be a shortage of ammunition production in the EU and thus available to supply to Ukraine without wheels being taken this time last year's, maybe earlier, this I think was pointed out by Perun's channel not that long into the war and we far as I know nothing has really been done to address this. I do honestly think though that the biggest issue is the US, and more significant the Republican Party and Trump. You could, and many do say that Europe should be able to cope without the US, and I don't disagree this position, but the US is still the world's superpower with the most advanced military on the planet and I think nothing at NATO really gets done without it's say so. The EU is a trade area, it doesn't have one military, it was never, despite many of its opponents claiming it is, a centralised political entity and so for Europe think of it instead of having one battle between supporters of Ukraine and those who think what we're doing is either enough or to much, but 27+ battles, each in their own parliament, and with just one or two not be unified in backing Ukraine it's just not easy, and that's not to mention long term Russian influence in some countries some that were vassell states to the Soviet Union in the time of the Cold War, which although changed when these countries embraced democracy some of that influence is still there, and probably manifests itself more during harder times which we're in now.
How are you have though, I believe it's a product of the financial crash in 2008 and basically a lost decade of growth after that, during which people haven't seen their lives get better, many people have gotten poorer whilst those at the top are getting richer. This sets up the perfect breeding ground for bad actors to stir up nationalistic ferver to blame all these immigrants for any this has happened rather than the failure of their own policies, whilst enriching themselves and their friends at the same time. When this happens it sets the scene the politics we're seeing through the western world and that has been going on for some time now. How are "fix" this I don't know, but what I do know is that turning our backs on Ukraine won't make the problem of Putin to away, it won't make the world a safer place, and with an this it won't make our lives more prosperous, or fix the problems we have in all our countries. What really is needed is leadership and I don't know where this is coming from now, or anytime in the near future.
Apart from giving weapons, I wonder what else should/could the west do for Ukraine?
They want the US to completely destroy Russia. Damn any of the consequences. That’s it nothing short of that will satisfy them.
@TheJeanette53
We’re already contributing with funds so Ukraine can pay their troops, civil servants, etc. as well as humanitarian aid.
But we could do plenty more; expell Russians from the West, ban all import of Russian goods, ban investment in Russia, ban every export to Russia, close borders and intensify NATO drills and air activity to further stretch Russian resources.
Hi Vlad!
Hi!!!!!
Just get good. Wise friend told me this. He also advised me he didn't just say that as the only thing. But I asked him to advise me and help me in the first place.
we need better democratic leaders !
We need to be better democratic citiziens!
@@juliarichter6987 that too !
We elect them.
@@stephenhill545 well yeah, some of us from this " We " have 💩 for brains... and they like to simp for Putrid and betray democracies in their OWN ALLIANCE. & that needs to be CALLED OUT ASAP.
I just cant believe it! .. & its soo shocking!🙃
The main problem to me is that we don't want to risk Russia losing. In fact I'm convinced that if Western countries West of Poland were forced to chose between Russia taking Kiev and Ukraine taking Crimea, they would rather allow Russia to win. We just don't know how to handle the nuclear blackmail.
We're still in the Cold War mindset, where it was understood that even though the nuclear threat was always implicit, it would never be made overt save if either power was threatened with destruction. We don't know how to handle a mafia state that threaten nukes whenever they don't get their own way.
So true. Democracies are weak. The non-stop, 24 hour a day news cycle and instantaneous social media barrage of commentary are wearing us down. We can't handle the information overload. There's no time to draw a breath, let alone actually reflect on anything that might result in coherent and effective policy making.
Agreed. Freedom is, and always has been, hard work.
I am scared...I totally admit it. Globalization, the internet, growing populations and the growing divide between ultra wealth and sustainable income have made people become residents and not citizens. The demarcation between residents and citizens ( your concept which I have taken to heart) is born out of fear. This attitude kills off democracy. People just want to be "ok" and they don't care how to get there. It is a very turbulent time to come and yes, I'm very worried.
Residents come from places where democracy hasn't worked. Do you think they'll make their new homes better democracies?
Time flies, I have been following you for a year and a half now. I seem to notice a progress in the timeline you anticipated. About a year ago you were talking about that our democracy ships would sail into the open ocean. Now I understand we're at sea. It is possible that events are progressing the way you thought they would, only much faster?
Thanks a lot. Sad but true… probably
Your insights are interesting, Vlad. The same issues with democracy and democratic capacity existed during the cold war years, and the West eventually came out on top. I had my doubts back then too.
Wtf, why did my comment get deleted?
In any case, in Finland we say "Siberia teaches." If the collective West refuses to take action now, we will have to learn later and it won't be so easy anymore.
Russian bots reporting ya.
I attribute it primarily moral weakness and cowardice. Simple really. Additional factors are the moral confusion that arises from woke liberalism and a lack of national pride.
Very sobering Vlad, but maybe needed to be said.
It is hard to keep up hope when you feel that democracy must win every time in order to survive whereas undemocracy only has to win once. The further the last world war recedes into the past the more that horror is forgotten, and the conviction of "never again" recedes with it. You realize that the best laws or constitution cannot protect peace and democratic order if the majority is either indifferent or works actively against it. I always thought that the simple (and wrong) solutions to complex problems is what appeals to people, but we see more and more that populist agitators offer no solutions at all and still attract a bigger and bigger following. Still, all is not lost, so let's all do what we can.
If the qualification for democracy not being in crisis is that it seems eager and willing to do hard things which could increase security in the future, then I'm not sure when it was not in crisis.
Pre-WWII, I can't think of a single democracy or republic, all the way back to Rome, that managed to restore its form of government after a fall to rule by an emperor or fascist leader. In all cases that I am aware of it took the total military defeat and occupation by an outside power to pry the fascists off of their government.
I don't think the US can count on any outside power coming to save us from ourselves.
In my opinion people are looking at this from the wrong angle. At the same time they do not listen when officials let the truth slip.
Start of the war Lloyd Austin (United States secretary of defense" stated that we would provide what Ukraine needs to weaken Russia to the point that it cannot attack its neighbor's again. He didn't say win and the press got mad. Winning was not the plan.
Mid 2022 a former NATO commander stated, We are watching a smaller Soviet military fighting a larger Soviet military.
Before the failed counteroffensive NATO Command stated that Ukraine had what it needed for the counteroffensive.
Press asked former UK military commander why the offensive failed and he replied, We cannot expect them to fight like professional NATO troops.
But the west does not want Ukraine. The west simply doesn't want Russia to have it, and the security lie has been exposed.
Since the start of the cold war the military industrial complex has sold us the story that we have to prepare for war with the mighty USSR, then it collapsed. So they said it was Russia that is the real threat, spend billions more. Then we discover that Russia looks good on paper but that is it. Russia is a paper tiger that is left out in the rain. It is only a threat when it comes to nukes.
Democracy is not failing us. It is working as it should and debate is taking place. Some still believe that Russia is a threat. Others point out that Russia cannot beat Ukraine and an attack on NATO would be suicide. Ukraine has no professional soldiers and it is a waste to send more money and gain nothing. So the debate continues.
Meantime the military industrial complex knows the paper tiger is out of the bag and they need another super villain and that is China.
Interesting that I had this very conversation today with a neighbor walking our dogs. Are we getting ready to accept that our Democracy is collapsing, we did let this happen.
How can I say this nicely? Well, I‘m afraid we have to teach political education and critical thinking in schools again properly and effectively. I‘d also plead for teaching scientific thinking.
I‘m afraid this generation will recognize danger no sooner as danger knocks personally at their door and threatens them directly and physically.
Thank you Vlad for your explanation. This is the underlying root cause and the only medicine for establishing a healthy political society however to my opinion.
Another point of discussion I suggest is how does an overall aging society decide? What are their priorities in life? What is the likely outcome of democratic decisions in an aging society? Special focus on the will to change and develop.
Which generation, actually? I know as a chronically online person from the opposite end of the globe, my perception might have nothing to do with reality, but from what i'm seeing the level of political awareness and thought in young millenials and zoomers from North America is sort of scary high compared to what i'd expect.
Also i don't know if critical thinking is maybe a little overrated and passion and compassion a little underrated? I used to be way into "critical thinking" maybe 15-20 odd years ago. But when you have such uhhh pardon me bulwarks of Facts and Logic which obviously Don't Care About Your Feelings, maybe "critical thinking" has run its course, and feelings are exactly what you need.
@@SianaGearz i mean the coming generations that will attend schools and universities. You have to teach them how to recognize manipulation/propaganda. As you know it works mostly with half-truths and creating emotional outrage about a created meaning that is per se not true or not exact or not diversified. It works with judgement and blame based on wrong assumptions. I very much support that compassion and awareness gets more important in this world. What I am talking about however is abuse of people by creating outrage over false assumptions that were deliberately created and are far from reality. That is why it is crucial that you recognize it when someone tries to manipulate. That also means mind and emotion and knowledge in balance.
@@SianaGearz bc my answer disappeared I’ll try again 😏: the generation who has to be threatend personally and physically to believe smth AND act on it is mine (X and older). The generation that I suggest to be taught how manipulation works is the one that will be pupils/students next. I also wanted to point out, that while I support compassion very much, we have far too little in our societies (yet), I very strongly oppose abusing emotions by manipulation. There are techniques to effectively manipulate someone, like NLP (which can also be used in therapy, but id say mostly it is abused). Manipulation mostly works with halftruths concluding from these to the next halftruth (number of reps varying) and concludes with a straight out false statement/pseudo assumption, additionally worded in way that provokes upset/outrage etc. Another way we see often nowadays is accusing the opponent of more or less exactly what the manipulator him/herself does. Like RF often claims they never go after civilian targets, only Ukr does that. Or they were about to attack us, so they forced us to do a preemptive strike (attack) blabla. Or Ukr is planning to blow up Kahovka damm etc etc. Another popular technique is the slippery slope argument: e.g. if we let smth continue (like that - whatever) we’ll soon be doomed (drastic irrational consequence). Little examples Im sure you know, but unfortunately many fall into that trap again and again. And RF is a very special specialist with that 😏
@@Gazer873 I actually have for some reason done a course in hypnotherapy, got an alternative practitioner certificate :D that i'm not putting to any use whatsoever, but from my point of view and experience here, NLP is not a thing. People believe what they have chosen to believe. I can make someone raise their arm and do some gestures without them noticing that they were doing it, but it's a parlour trick, i'm not actually changing someone's mind. I can tell you a story but whether it works, depends on your willingness to go with it.
I think emotionally mature people recognise emotional manipulation. Just like people mature in rhetoric recognise rhetorical manipulation of the kind you speak. I don't think one skill is complete without the other.
@@Gazer873 Apropos disappearing replies, well i have that problem as well in this thread apparently. :( Not sure whether it's going to pop back up or whether i need to reword it somehow. I can't even think what sort of filter i might have hit, i thought everything i said was perfectly inoffensive.
I would add that in America and maybe even in the West people are getting tired of all the ribbon cutting but no finished bridges. We have all these commitments and problems that are piling up on us, we hear about all the solutions to these problems but we never see it fully resolved. We never reach the “War is Over” moment. If citizens don’t get to feel the completion of the first national task (JFK saying let’s land on the moon and then we did) then why would they want to move on to another even bigger task.
The "climate" goals to be completed long after these politicians are out of office are especially irksome. "We know nuclear power is unpopular so we assume that civilization can be carbon neutral in X decades using solar panels and windmills. We hereby sign this treaty that ignores reality and makes us look good even though we are ignorant of energy engineering and even math."
@@AstroGremlinAmerican The climate goals will and can never be completed by government. That is because governments under the control of the legacy system and the climate goals are only achievable by utter disruption of the legacy system. Free enterprise working outside of the present order will achieve and far exceed all climate goals. This is actually being done as the governments fiddle their thumbs. There are good mathematical models that show that solar can and will (because it is cheaper than anything else) take over. The engineering is solid.
I try to negotiate the trends and news. Its hard not to get overwhelmed by petitions from groups for support to bring change...signing things to send to lobby Parliament to try and bring change...
@UCRYbTWBi2tM1DmhqZWuUBZQ don't do twitter sadly
US Leadership did not come to the American People to explain the support and consequences. Also, The current US administration has created an intense lack of security and instability of the US Southern border. Add to this economic uncertainty and huge price increases leading to economic pain in food and fuel to the every day US Citizens.......Uncertainty, insecurity, instability...leads to less will to keep sending funds and resources abroad.
I think the key problems are:
1) Professional expertise in the West has been mortally wounded by its politicisation and monetisation over the past 23 years. The media also contributed this massively by following party lines without neutral questioning. The worst of this was the Iraq War and the unrealistic trauma of the Afghan intervention. It was mainly the cynicism of this use that convinced me that Putin's manoeuvres in 2021 and early 2022 would not result in an invasion. I was completely wrong and it was the 'cry wolf' experience plus my ignorance of how poorly Putin was informed and how his own motivation worked that created this issue.
2) The West has been cursed by machine politicians devoid of common sense or ideology and motivated by a cynical desire for power. As a result voters are de-motivated, because politicians have failed to address the issues that matter to them, because those politicians have only followed the concerns of the elite who finance their campaigns. In reaction we have populists like Trump who gain popularity by saying they will address those concerns. The result is a total divorce between managerial elite classes and working classes with the former imposing their will on the latter with predictable resentment. Until we find politicians who can bridge that gap with determination and eloquence, the mess will continue. The Covid crisis was an example of weak politicians using fear and fake reliance on science with suppression of opposing viewpoints (rather than taking on those arguments with logic and evidence) - this showed arrogance and laziness of huge proportions.
We need honesty in the West to tell us we are at war with Putin albeit a Cold War and we need to gear our economies accordingly. At the moment Putin still sees only weakness and that is incredibly dangerous. If we have a stalemate cease-fire in Ukraine, Putin will simply re-arm and have a crack at the West in another area and this could provoke an utter disaster.
Thanks to you Vlad we have intellectual tools to see this more clearly.
💯
It seems as though we shouldn't need experts to tell us that it's in US interests to support Ukraine to victory. It seems like the sort of thing that anyone should be able to see.
Then there's the inevitable march of regress of our institutions, which still sounds to me like an epistemologically-equal mirror to the inevitable march of progress that a lot of people like to imagine.
Carl Schmitt had some thoughts relating to parliamentarian-type democratic gridlock such as has resulted in the current suspension of US & EU aid to Ukraine.
I think you had a point today. That a certain denocratic rule may have more or less capacity. Less sophisticated put as "strength" or "weakness". Of course this also applies to other forms of governance of states, but becoming aware of this phenomenon I think really could help a lot of us.
There are elections coming up in many countries, which causes leaders to be very cautios of making bold strong decisions.
Because politicians are a thing.
I think you are spot on in regard to there being that hole! Also, in regard to the idea of a manufactured hope might never the less have some value, even if it is just a manufactured hope . And one area I think one might manufacture such a hope is in technology and innovation.
For in past wars technology has been much more than a mere manufactured hope but a major factor in shaping the outcome of that war, such as the development of radar and proximity fuses and cracking the enigma code, and, of course, the A bomb, which did not win the war but did end it.
Thus in addition to normal military figure of merit one might employ in developing weapon systems and tactics such as probability of kill (Pk), probability of hit (Ph), there is the Pr, Probability of showing up in the news cycle, i.e. PR.
And so the problem from a PR standpoint is that even new technologies and tactics, such as using commercial drones does get in the news cycles, they do so only for a while, until they become old news.
Thus the west might keep developing weapons that might prove to be game changers as well as war winners but also might develop lesser technologies, but maybe easier and quicker to develop that might help gain points in the PR wars and reset the newness meter in the news cycles.
For example the drone ships are not only wrecking havoc on the Russian Baltic fleet but made great news. So maybe that means make even more of those and more drones! But maybe some of that money and effort might be better used to develop new stuff, that might not be all that more effective, in that their is the law of diminishing returns on making things better, where one might reach a point that good enough will do, but that the added benefits of resetting the newness value might justify adding that additional level of capability in that benefits in the PR department and even the use of stunts might have their value there.
For example from a military standpoint Doolittle's raid on Tokyo has no real effect. But form a PR standpoint it had a huge effect, so much so that it led Yamamoto to plan on taking Midway, and we all know how that turned out.
But the US DOD is not in the business of affect PR nor should it be. But there needs to be some agency with some clout designated to do that and thus help spawn the development of there potential PR weapons that (who knows) some might turn out to be real game changers after all and not just stunts!
And one potential problem in the US military is that it seems (based on a number of comments I have heard from senior military leaders) to equate its special forces with the idea that Sun Tzu had of irregular forces.
But one might argue the special forces are just that, special, and yes, necessary, very necessary, but maybe not sufficient.
For those civilians making drones for Ukraine seem to be more what one would call an irregular force, or the Taliban use Toyota trucks and Honda motorcycles.
So can a regular force work to support an irregular one. Well, the British did that in WW2 by supporting partisan fighters in the occupied countries.
And such a force used Lysanders which could land and take off at night on short strips in France to carry in personnel and supplies and take back people, and not so much Spitfire fighters and Lancaster bombers. Thus this irregular force might need irregular force compatible gear as well.
So perhaps there needs to be a irregular support group in the government that operate on different rules to fund, procure, support, and evaluate new technologies geared to help up the PR value of the war as well as potentially the war fighting abilities as well.
Here is one example:
Using armed gyrocopters (which are relatively inexpensive, easy to modify, easy to fly, can take off on short fields, can fly slow, are much cheaper to operate than helicopters, but other than China and Columbia have been spurned for military use by most countries for more capable, and also more expensive platforms) in rear areas to help shoot down drones attacking civilian targets. Will that work? Well, maybe or maybe not, but it might be worth a try. But that try could be filmed and (even if the results are marginal) they could be touted on CNN showing that innovation is not dead or stagnate but alive and well.
So this irregular procurement force could buy a few gyrocopter and then make some modifications, do some quick filed testing and then get a camera crew and do some limited combat operations to see how well they work, and get some good PR from the process.
Now if some technology looks really promising one might not want to piecemeal its adoption, as say the British did with the tank in WW1. But then one can develop such technologies along similar lines but with maybe a different PR plan where one can feed in a lot of disinformation as well.
And there are many other examples I could cite as well (and I have a whole Padlet corkboard devoted to them), but (hopefully) this one example get s the basic idea across!
Or another way of putting this, is perhaps now a days wars or sort of like RUclips channels in that one needs to ever keep coming up with new content to maintain viewership!
And part of PR is naming so maybe this irregular R&D arm might not be called DARPA but DARPette! And it can developing people's pet projects.
Also, if MAGA Republicans are one of the major advocates of cutting future aid to Ukraine it might be worth directing any PR to counter that to better resonate with the MAGA crowd.
For example I have proposed employing e-bikes beefed up with some light weight armor and even a gun as a mean of providing extra mobility where larger vehicles have problems operating and have found that it seems many think bikes are kids stuff and scoff at the idea (never mind that deer hunters are now employing E-bikes as well as the Ukrainians are now using them as well, as quite successfully did the Japanese in the rapid conquest of Malaysia in WW2).
But another idea is to convert old junk trucks into remote controlled monster trucks (beefing the tires up to be more mine resistant and filling the truck with sandbags and such to make it harder to destroy and maybe driving them in reverse so the engines face away from the enemy) and using swarms of these to plow through mine fields.
These could also carry Mk-82 500lb bombs and thus act as a kamikaze truck as well... and the US has scads of old MK-82 just sitting in warehouses... an congress need not have to pay for Biden to send these to Ukraine.
Now the MAGA crowd might also scoff at this idea as well, being something new. But if they actually saw this being done, monster trucks might better resonate with them than say e-bikes and as such might take a bit of the wind out of their sails in regard to cutting aid... or maybe not.
But the idea is that modern war (and maybe all war) is a bit theatre (or theater of the absurd) and certain political leaders (e.g. FDR and Churchill) understood that and knew how to play those cards as the situation might warrant such as to get Lend Lease approved amidst a country with a huge isolationist bent.
So the idea here is that there may be plenty of things to try and do other than giving up in despair!
Spot on about what hole?
Before I start, oh god I think I am going to agree with a lot of this
Is a lack of strategy a symptom of disunion? Is fluctuation between union and disunion a normal social process? Looking back over the past 1,000 years of European history, I see social union and disunion as the most prevalent process.
I see lots of onions. Until potatoes came from the New World and changed everything.
I disagree. The assumption here is democracies have control. The fact is they lost it to the corporations years ago. It isn't democratic capacity that matters, but market capacity.
How do we fight against that?
Where is the water that is being dropped in said bucket going?