The Soviet Union lost the Cold War because the US tricked the military-intelligence dominated Brezhnev[0] "administration" into diverting too much investment towards defense. The result was under-investment in infrastructure and agriculture that doomed the USSR over the long run. The US was able to sustain this because it had a larger industrial base.
Shall we foolishly end up on the other side of that? The Chinese can outproduce us in preparation for a war they do not actually want to fight, it would be terrible if they joined forces with our own defense sector to ransack the private sector and proverbially "eat the seed corn."
[0]He was installed in a coup against the defense-spending-critical Khrushchev.
Their society is rapidly improving. The less they fight, the better off they'll be. What will fighting get them apart from ruin?
It isn't a guarantee of peace, obviously. The same logic applies to everyone and there are still a lot of wars. But the warmakers tend to struggle to achieve the sort of results that the Chinese do and as a government they have a 50 year history of success through peace not war.
Their society is rapidly stagnating with a disastrous demographic profile. And since it's now a dictatorship the decision ultimately comes down to one man: Chairman Xi. No one knows what's going on in his head so we have to assume the worst.
Yeah but the Russians didn't declare war because of their demographics. In fact, if you ask them why this happened Putin gave a whole speech [0] on this when he sent the troops in, which can be neatly summarised:
> We are talking about what causes us particular concern and anxiety, about those fundamental threats that year after year, step by step, are rudely and unceremoniously created by irresponsible politicians in the West in relation to our country. I mean the expansion of the Nato bloc to the east, bringing its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders.
It isn't obvious that China is dealing with the same sort of pressures in East Asia.
I think it's well-established that Putin's posture on the subject isn't sincere or an accurate assessment of their government's actual motive for war.
If NATO anxiety was the primary factor for the war in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't be so blasé about draining troops and hardware from its borders with NATO countries to throw them into the meat-grinder.
They would still probably do it, mind you, but it would be a huge scandal and a subject of existential dread for Russian media and elites.
The fact that they've been stripping their NATO borders bare with barely anyone noticing or caring shows that nobody views the prospect of a NATO invasion as realistic. It was always a fig leaf.
(Although maybe there were scandals and I never heard of them. My exposure to Russian media is filtered through Western media. But I heard about other scandals and anxieties.)
> The fact that they've been stripping their NATO borders bare with barely anyone noticing or caring shows that nobody views the prospect of a NATO invasion as realistic.
Nobody has ever suggested that there was a prospect of a NATO invasion of Russia. That is crazy talk; it'd be the end of civilisation in the northern hemisphere. They aren't deploying troops to ward off a NATO invasion, that is what the ICBMs are for.
Right. But why is NATO "bringing military infrastructure closer to Russian borders" a concern to Russia if they aren't worried about a NATO invasion?
So what's really going on? Well, Putin said "rudely". Russia feels insulted because everybody wants to be in NATO, and nobody wants to be Russia's buddy... if you take Putin's words at face value.
If you don't, then I think Putin is terrified of Ukraine's revolution against a Russia-friendly leader. He doesn't want a western-friendly revolution in a culturally-Russian-adjacent country to succeed - there's too much chance that Russians might decide that they like the idea.
Because the major point of that infrastructure is to kill lots of Russians? It isn't hard to understand the motivations here, we've seen the US throw a massive hissy fit in the Cuban Missile crisis because of Soviet gear in Cuba and that was much more benign than a full military integration. And the US has a history dating back more than a century of tolerating no rival military powers in their hemisphere [0] let alone on their borders. There isn't anything to wonder at here - the Russians see their security interests as covering their border regions. In a display of outrageous hypocrisy the US also sees their security interests as also covering Russia's border region. Kremlin concern over this is hardly unexpected.
The way the Ukraine war has played out makes it pretty clear the Russians did have legitimate concerns. When the US invades Iraq with no moral justification, everyone moves on. When Russia invades Ukraine with no moral justification we see a similar response from most of the world ... except NATO that goes in and orchestrates what Wikipedia suggests are half a million casualties of the Russian armed forces [1].
Why might Russian military planners feel this is a threat? Because they can count corpses and they're not stupid. If you want to argue that they underestimated the threat NATO posed them in Ukraine and so Putin was lying that is one thing, but if so his propaganda happened to be truer to reality than he thought because he made a great point. NATO is out to get the Russians.
We've seen the US throw a massive hissy fit in the Cuban Missile crisis because of Soviet gear in Cuba and that was much more benign than a full military integration.
Except there was no "full military integration" in the works, or even any "gear" deployed in Ukraine before Putin started throwing his massy hissy fit in 2014.
Because the major point of that infrastructure is to kill lots of Russians?
The point is to gently remind the current regime of the borders of NATO states, and of this thing known as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
> Former NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer seems to disagree with that assessment, there were plans.
There were none, this "eventually" was an empty consolation without any timeframe, and was widely criticized as such at the time. No gear, no integration - and no desire to move in that direction.
> And that was even before the 2014 coup that coincidentally set up a pro-NATO government.
There was no coup in Ukraine. Ukraine became very interested in the military alliance after Russia invaded them.
> If NATO anxiety was the primary factor for the war in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't be so blasé about draining troops and hardware from its borders with NATO countries to throw them into the meat-grinder
> If you can convince the Russian commanders of that I would suggest getting in contact with them.
They already know it. The European part of Russia is practically undefended, everything has been committed to Ukraine. When Prigozhin marched on Moscow, there was nothing to oppose him other than a few bucket loaders to dig up roads.
Russians are huffing and puffing about NATO because it makes riskier and costlier for them to invade other countries and kill people there. That's the simple truth. Everything else is bullshit and the theories you are spinning do not hold up to any scrutiny.
Nothing of this is new. In the 1940s, Russians acted the same way. Demanded neutrality and "military cooperation" and all the other fine euphemism you present us, then invaded their neighbors, set up communist dictatorships and began sending by hundreds of thousands everyone from toddlers to bed-ridden elderly to labor camps in the Siberian wilderness or executed them on the spot, and opened floodgates to massive resettlement of ethnic Russians to wipe natives off the map. It's still in the living memory. Nobody wants to relive that again, which is why this time nobody intends to make themselves an easy target with neutrality again and countries have only increased military cooperation the more hostile Russia has become.
> Nothing of this is new. In the 1940s, Russians acted the same way...
This whole paragraph isn't a serious argument. Putin was born in the 1950s and while it might be in living memory none of the leadership class involved in this were alive in the 1940s, the economic concerns of the pre-WWII world were different to the modern era, and Russia had a dramatic shift of government philosophy in the 90s.
You may as well make policy on the basis that the British have global imperial ambitions, that the Germans are genocidal, that the Japanese are threatening to invade the Philippines or that the US has a small government. You can't lumber people with the assumption that their government is going to behave the same as in the 1940s.
> Russians are huffing and puffing about NATO because it makes riskier and costlier for them to invade other countries and kill people there. That's the simple truth. Everything else is bullshit and the theories you are spinning do not hold up to any scrutiny.
Can you articulate my theories? Because you seem to be in furious agreement on this point, you just haven't managed to take the next logical step and append some serious reflection and a "Did the policies we adopted make the situation better or worse? And who for?" on the end. Because we seem to have adopted a position that has left almost literally everyone involved and most of the bystanders in a worse position than if NATO hadn't been posturing against the Russians for the last 30 years. Driven, I suspect, by the same inane tiger-with-unchanging-stripes logic that you are suggesting.
And even if that logic is right, looking to the 1940s should come with a "and policy today has to be completely different to avoid the large and catastrophic war that then followed". Not this gentle escalatory madness that is taking place and the breakdown of communication and empathy that many people seem to want. The big lesson of WWII is Europe can't afford to solve their problems with big military actions. The NATO strategy of avoiding diplomacy suggests we are going to relearn that lesson which is moderately terrifying.
You may as well make policy on the basis that the British have global imperial ambitions, that the Germans are genocidal, that the Japanese are threatening to invade the Philippines or that the US has a small government. You can't lumber people with the assumption that their government is going to behave the same as in the 1940s.
Going to? They never stopped. Russia is behaving as it has always behaved. When they invaded Ukraine in 2014, they set up fake People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. These fake countries then asked Russia for help and the jolly Russian army immediately entered Ukraine to "protect" them. Later, Luhansk and Donetsk held fake referendums and asked Russia to annex them. Russia gladly accepted the request and they became a part of Russian Federation.
This is exactly the same blueprint as was used in 1940 to occupy Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Russians even tried the same with Finland and established Finnish Democratic Republic, which had to be scrapped after Finns put up a stiff resistance and Russians lost the Winter War. And they continued with this after the WWII to set up communist dictatorships all across Europe, same blueprint over and over again. Local population "invites" and Russians flood in with tanks and guns to "help".
If you know history, then this is like watching a re-run.
Can you articulate my theories? Because you seem to be in furious agreement on this point, you just haven't managed to take the next logical step and append some serious reflection and a "Did the policies we adopted make the situation better or worse? And who for?" on the end. Because we seem to have adopted a position that has left almost literally everyone involved and most of the bystanders in a worse position than if NATO hadn't been posturing against the Russians for the last 30 years. Driven, I suspect, by the same inane tiger-with-unchanging-stripes logic that you are suggesting.
Your theories have nothing to do with facts on the ground. You say that NATO has been posturing against Russia. Nothing could be further from the truth.
MILITARY SPENDING of Europe had continued to steadily decrease since the end of the Cold War. In 2006, the total spending was 190 billion. By 2014, it was down to 162 billion. As a percentage of GDP, Cold War era spending was 3-5%, now it's 1-2%.
EUROPEAN MILITARY CAPABILITIES have been in steep decline too. In 1990, German Army had 308 000 personnel, 5045 tanks, 2136 IFVs. To cut costs, Germany disbanded most of its army and sold off its equipment all over the world, as far as Chile. By 2015, only 61 312 personnel, 225 tanks and 406 remained. The same trends were mirrored in other countries.
AMERICAN MILITARY PRESENCE in Europe was also in decline. In 1987, the US had 80 military bases in Europe. 30 years later, less than half remained. Furthermore, these bases are a shadow of their former self: the number of US military personnel deployed to Europe is at the lowest since the WWII, down from 320 000 during the 1980s to around 60 000 nowadays, mostly manning facilities like the massive military hospital at Ramstein airbase. In 1989, US Army had 5000 tanks in Germany alone. In 2013, the last twenty American tanks departed Europe.
NEW DEPLOYMENTS TO EUROPE were ridiculously small, mainly light infantry for host nation training purposes: as of 2017, a single non-permanent battalion with 800 personnel and 4 jets in Estonia, a 1200-strong battalion in Latvia and another in Lithuania with 4 jets, and 4000-strong armored battalion in Poland. Plus 4 jets in Romania for three months in the summer. Is this the infamous "encirclement"?
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS is an adequate comparison only insofar as it applies to Russian behavior.
Russia and NATO agreed in the founding act of 1997 that NATO would not station any missiles in Eastern Europe. NATO has upheld that commitment for a quarter of a century. NATO nuclear missiles remain where they we...
> Going to? They never stopped. Russia is behaving as it has always behaved.
They did stop. There was that long period from 1990 to 2014 where they were withdrawing their military influence. The area controlled by Moscow's is going to have shrunk over my lifetime even at current rates of conquest. We could have kept that 25-year period going if the treatment of the Russian state had been a bit more welcoming instead of rapping them over the knuckles for being naive.
> [various caps-locked sections]
There are a lot of reasons why a war might not have happened, but given that a war has actually happened it only makes sense to look why it did. The NATO budget was allowed to shrink because the USSR budget imploded - NATO was still outspending Russia by more than 10:1. Frankly it has been pretty stunning how well the Russians have held up over the last 2 years to the point where I suspect the Chinese are more actively involved than it looks.
Russia isn't complaining about what is happening in Germany, France and the UK. They're complaining about what is happening in the likes of Ukraine and Georgia. And I doubt they are as much worried by US troop deployments as they are by exactly the situation that has played out in Ukraine. Slav troops, NATO weapons and EU logistical support.
> a single non-permanent battalion with 800 personnel and 4 jets in Estonia, a 1200-strong battalion in Latvia and another in Lithuania with 4 jets, and 4000-strong armored battalion in Poland. Plus 4 jets in Romania for three months in the summer. Is this the infamous "encirclement"?
Yes. If not for encircling Russia, what use is Estonia to the US? Why else put military resources there? It is part of a broad-based strategy of lots of Russians dying if the situation gets hot. I don't think anyone would really disagree with that assessment, but the Russians are quite vocal that they'd rather it wasn't so.
> NATO nuclear missiles remain where they were 50 years ago
The specific deployment of those missiles isn't really the point; the point is that the US would never tolerate a whisper of something like NATO but directed against the US on the American continent. Russia not tolerating NATO on their borders is a pretty reasonable attitude compared to what the mirror-image US response would be.
But, that said, NATO leadership are liars. They said they weren't going to expand NATO, then they did. If they say they aren't going to station missiles in their new military allies you'd be a bit gullible to believe that. It is believable if they say missiles won't be stationed until they are sure Russia can't do anything about it.
They did stop. There was that long period from 1990 to 2014 where they were withdrawing their military influence.
Russia was not "withdrawing" by choice. Being kicked out of Eastern Europe was the result of USSR's total economic collapse and inability to feed its soldiers, provide electricity and heating to their barracks, or fuel for their vehicles. It got so bad that officers were forcing conscripts into street prostitution to earn money for food. They were not in a position to suppress the native populations anymore, and gladly packed up their stuff and left in exchange for shipments of American chicken legs.
But even those difficulties did not prevent Russia from using the same old blueprint of coming to the "rescue" of "oppressed minority" time and time again, as much as their means allowed. From Crimea and Donbas in 2014, to Georgia in 2008, to Abkhazia and Transnistria and others in the 1990s, to Afghanistan in the 1980s, to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956, and countless other "missions in support of brotherly nations", the chain of intrusions into other countries remains unbroken.
There are a lot of reasons why a war might not have happened, but given that a war has actually happened it only makes sense to look why it did. The NATO budget was allowed to shrink because the USSR budget imploded - NATO was still outspending Russia by more than 10:1.
Money is meaningless metric when Russian military relies on the massive stockpiles created many decades ago. In Europe, much of that spending went towards destroying Cold War era stockpiles to cut long-term storage costs. As a result, Germany has less tanks in its entire arsenal than Russia has lost in Ukraine in the past few weeks, and in the few weeks prior to that, and in the few weeks prior to that too. In total, Russia has lost 40 times the entire German tank fleet.
Yes. If not for encircling Russia, what use is Estonia to the US? Why else put military resources there?
There were no permanent American "military resources" in Estonia, or anywhere else in Eastern Europe, before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The specific deployment of those missiles isn't really the point; the point is that the US would never tolerate a whisper of something like NATO but directed against the US on the American continent.
The US already tolerates it. China has military installations on Cuba, which is more than there ever was in Eastern Europe. The entire Europe tolerates nuclear missiles aimed at them from Kaliningrad.
But, that said, NATO leadership are liars. They said they weren't going to expand NATO, then they did. If they say they aren't going to station missiles in their new military allies you'd be a bit gullible to believe that. It is believable if they say missiles won't be stationed until they are sure Russia can't do anything about it.
Nobody has promised that, or has even been in a position to give such promises. Here's Gorbachev calling it directly a myth, and his defense minister saying that he's never heard about it: https://x.com/splendid_pete/status/1650735533826375680
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO - or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_NATO_enlargeme... if you like visuals.
I don't. Put it into words, if you can. If you are trying to argue that European countries cannot freely choose to cooperate with each other, then Russia has reiterated in multiple treaties their respect (at least in words) for sovereign countries to choose their allies. Huffing and puffing about NATO became mainstream in Russia years after Eastern Europe had entered the organization; as Putin began the ...
That is what withdrawing looks like; armies don't tend to pull back because their occupation is going swimmingly. You already mentioned Ramstein, for example - the US have been in Germany for the better part of a century and the German's weren't welcoming them when they walked in. Armies withdraw because it is untenable to remain.
And you can see the Russian's have learned from that with things like the '08 invasion of Georgia. They only occupied portions of the country instead of the whole thing and it sounds like they're maintaining the legal fiction that they are independent.
> There were no permanent American "military resources" in Estonia, or anywhere else in Eastern Europe, before Russia invaded Ukraine.
So? I doubt there was much if anything in the way of permanent military resources in Ukraine and we've seen around half a million Russian causalities so far. That sort of outcome is a much bigger problem for them than whether the resources in Estonia are permanent or temporary.
If you don't want to explore the question of why the US had/has troops in Estonia of all places then don't bring it up. But I suspect that is a question of great interest to the Russian generals because it is hard to come up with alternatives to it being an anti-Russia encirclement.
> China has military installations on Cuba
Not much of a comparison though. Cuba doesn't have land borders with the US so any aggression has to go through the US Navy first, and China isn't in a position to supply Cuba with more materiel because that would also have to go through the US Navy and Cuba is on the wrong side of the America for easy access. Plus the US military budget is still something like 2-3x China's.
It is hard to see how the Cubans, even with the military might of the Chinese behind them, can leverage that position into half a million dead US citizens. What is the battle plan supposed to be to achieve that?
> The entire Europe tolerates nuclear missiles aimed at them from Kaliningrad.
And there is a lesson there - once the missiles are emplaced there isn't much you can do about them. The important thing is to either negotiate them away or not let hostile powers establish themselves.
> Here's Gorbachev calling it directly a myth...
1) I've watched enough politics that I don't believe a 2-minute out-of-context translated clip to be evidence.
2) I doubt Russians have paper commitments for every possible way that the US can get missiles on their border either. You could just as easily be back in 2040 explaining that the nuclear battery in Estonia was never specifically banned by a treaty because [reasons]. If they'd realised they were signing up for 30 years of NATO expansion they would have asked for more guarantees in writing.
> I don't. Put it into words, if you can.
In the 1990s the Russians reached the point where they couldn't maintain their status as an international superpower. The US response has been to spend 30 years encircling them with a hostile military alliance with both the threat and now reality of killing 10s if not 100s of thousands of Russians.
This is what would be termed "aggressive posturing". As an alternative, defensive posturing involves not advancing and not orchestrating meat grinders.
> All in all, your position appears to stand on known falsehoods:
I still don't think you can articulate the argument here. I don't think 1 is true at all - the hope by everyone when the USSR fell was that those countries would be welcomed into international organisations.
2. To sign up with NATO the US has to agree that it is in their interests. But I also agree that the countries involved were signing up enthusiastically. No-one is claiming they were compelled.
3. This seems like an accurate characterisation on first read, but I'm also obviously correct in the argument here. he US has been pouring materiel into Ukraine. It is reasonable to ...
1. Russians were kicked out of Europe because their entire economy collapsed and they became unable to field occupying armies anymore. This is not a proof of "change of government philosophy".
2. Withdrawal suits much better to describe American forces in Europe. They removed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, almost all heavy weaponry, and closed half of all military installations as a policy choice.
3. Russians were back to their old tricks by mid-1990s and that drove Eastern Europe to seek security from NATO.
4. The US has had infantry in Estonia for training purposes. Estonians are specialists in camouflage, small unit tactics and winter warfare, while the Americans have a lot to teach about combined arms warfare. Estonia has hosted many countries, Poland has had air defense systems set up and Swedish air force has flown simulated missions against them. That's what friendly nations do.
5. Foreign deployments have been intentionally limited to insignificant numbers so that Russia could not credibly claim to be threatened, but Russians are nevertheless annoyed. Not because they have a delusion that a few hundred infantrymen can "encircle" a country that spans 11 timezones, but because lauching missiles at Estonian barracks (like Ukraine saw on 24th February 2022) could potentially kill hundreds of Americans and drag the US into the war on day one.
6. If you want to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in Cuba, then an ill-prepared invasion along the lines of the Bay of Pigs would be great idea. When the invasion fails, keep sending hundreds of thousands of fresh troops into Cuba year after year. Don't forget to blame China if they help Cuba out with ammo.
7. Placement of NATO missiles in Europe was already negotiated in 1997 and NATO has sticked to their commitments. Only Russia has been inching closer to the other side.
8. If Gorbachev directly calling the "NATO promises" a myth is not good enough for you, then here's the foreign minister of the USSR giving a longer interview repeating the same things. According to him, nothing of this sort was discussed with Western diplomats, Warsaw Pact, or within communist party circles in Moscow. As a bonus, he says that he finds nothing wrong with the way Eastern Europe joined NATO: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-e...
9. That everyone "welcomed" Central and Eastern Europe into international organizations. Memoirs of diplomats, politicians and other representatives are littered with stories how no-one even took the countries they represented as actual countries, let alone viewed as even remote candidates to organizations. Early proponents of the EU and NATO membership were openly ridiculed even domestically. Go visit a library, read old newspapers, it's all there.
10. Integration of Central and Eastern Europe into the European Union and NATO has been a phenomenal success and has produced some of the most stable and prosperous countries on the planet. My first salary barely 30 years ago was 27 USD a month. Nowadays, it surpasses the average of several countries in Western Europe. Integration roadmaps helped CEE countries develop into modern states that have separation of powers, respect human rights, are run by law and offer ample opportunities. In alternative timeline, the 100 million people who gained freedom could've ended up in Russian-controlled totalitarian dictatorships like Belarus. That may not have a meaningful impact on your life, but it very much does have on mine.
11. Again, nobody was "pouring weapons into Ukraine" before Russia invaded. And nowadays, military aid to Ukraine - including heavy weaponry - is coming from all continents except Antarctica. If only pengu...
HDI growth in China is levelling out, and irredentist claims to Taiwan are a foundational piece of the CCP's ideology. The "strategic ambiguity" could be tolerated while Taiwan was relatively unimportant, but now that TSMC is one of the most important companies in the world, China is certainly at least considering war.
It is unfair to blame only one president for that, if any. The country was going to develop anyway. If Reagan was bad then what stopped Bush, Clinton, Obama, or anyone in Congress, from doing something about the policies that destroy our industries and make China rich?
> Reagan had been a prominent spokesman on behalf of Taiwan in the political arena, but his advisors convinced him to announce in his 1980 campaign that he would continue the opening to China. Haig argued strenuously that the People's Republic of China could be a major ally against the Soviet Union. Beijing refused to accept any two-China policy but agreed to postpone any showdown. As President, Reagan issued the "Six Assurances" to Taiwan and a joint communique with the PRC reaffirming the one-China policy.[31] As the Cold War wound down during Reagan's second term, and Shultz replaced Haig, the need for China as an ally faded away. Shultz focused much more on economic trade with Japan. Beijing warmly welcomed the president when he visited in 1984.[32]
> In commercial space travel, Reagan backed a plan which allowed American satellites to be exported and launched on China's Long March rockets.[33][34] This was criticized by Bill Nelson, then a Florida representative, as delaying U.S.'s own commercial space development, while industry leaders criticized the idea of a nation-state competing with private entities in the rocketry market.[35] The China satellite export deal continued through Bush and Clinton administrations.[34]
> Clinton's highest priority was to maintain trade with China, boost American exports, expand investment in the huge Chinese market, and create more jobs at home.[24] By granting China temporary most favoured nation status in 1993, his administration minimized tariff levels in Chinese imports. Clinton initially conditioned extension of this status on Chinese human rights reforms, but ultimately decided to extend the status despite a lack of reform in the specified areas of free emigration, no exportation of goods made with prison labor, release of peaceful protesters, treatment of prisoners in terms of international human rights, recognition of the distinct regional culture of type at, permitting international television and radio coverage, and observation of human rights specified by United Nations resolutions.
> In 1998, Clinton paid a friendly nine-day visit to China. Albright defended the trip by saying, "Engagement does not mean endorsement."[28] In 1999 Clinton signed a landmark trade agreement with China. The agreement–the result of more than a decade of negotiations–would lower many trade barriers between the two countries, making it easier to export U.S. products such as automobiles, banking services, and motion pictures. The Chinese citizens ability to afford and purchase U.S. goods should have been taken into consideration. However, the agreement could only take effect if China was accepted into the WTO and was granted permanent "normal trade relations" status by the U.S. Congress. Under the pact, the United States would support China's membership in the WTO. Many Democrats as well as Republicans were reluctant to grant permanent status to China because they were concerned about human rights in the country and the impact of Chinese imports on U.S. industries and jobs. Congress, however, voted in 2000 to grant permanent normal trade relations with China.[29] In 2000, Clinton signed a bill granting pe...
The same thing they're doing to pose the threat... trade with smaller countries, pressure them not to steal capital assets. But this reference to "democracy" is total propaganda, the US does not use only democratic allies.
> The Soviet Union lost the Cold War because the US tricked the military-intelligence dominated Brezhnev[0] "administration" into diverting too much investment towards defense. The result was under-investment in infrastructure and agriculture that doomed the USSR over the long run. The US was able to sustain this because it had a larger industrial base.
> Shall we foolishly end up on the other side of that?
Do you really think there's a chance the US would suffer from food lines and other shortages due to over-investment in defense a la the Soviet Union?
Democracy my ass. The politicians these people support and fund will try their damndest to turn the US into a China-style autocracy. Who will this arsenal be aimed at, I wonder?
Cheap, decentralized, they sail all day over a area waiting for that call to fold and strike? Everyone can make and coilgun a guncotton glider. No takers? Anyone.
Arsenal of democracy my ass. Imperial restocking after selling out all values.
"Only superior military technology can credibly deter war."
No. Various other factors including large alliances, trade risks, etc can deter war. And by far the biggest "deterrent" among our military technologies is nuclear weaponry, which relies on 1940s technology, thus undermining the essay's thesis that we need to innovate more in defense to prevent war.
With that said, many of the essay's suggestions are sound recommendations for improving the USA's ailing defense industry. I think that the consolidation of companies into a small number of conglomerates is particularly damaging.
Yeah came here to say this. The central argument Anduril makes here is preposterous, to the point where it feels like the whole enterprise is entirely unserious. Let's ask a basic logic question here: if the supposition is that one side has to have superior military technology lest the other side declare war on it, why isn't China at war with the US right now? Why isn't Russia at war with the US right now, or India, or Japan, or Pakistan, or Brazil, or Mexico, or Canada? Could it perhaps be there are other variables involved?
This deck feels like it was unearthed from a time capsule buried in 2010. "The Pentagon operated like a startup." Woof. "Move fast and break things" is maybe not the ideal motto when lives are at stake.
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Overall, a new arms race is not the answer. No serious person thinks arms races are good ideas. They are highly dangerous, especially at this level of technology. What works is diplomacy and a common cause against scarcity.
51 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] threadShall we foolishly end up on the other side of that? The Chinese can outproduce us in preparation for a war they do not actually want to fight, it would be terrible if they joined forces with our own defense sector to ransack the private sector and proverbially "eat the seed corn."
[0]He was installed in a coup against the defense-spending-critical Khrushchev.
Source: I lived through it.
It isn't a guarantee of peace, obviously. The same logic applies to everyone and there are still a lot of wars. But the warmakers tend to struggle to achieve the sort of results that the Chinese do and as a government they have a 50 year history of success through peace not war.
> We are talking about what causes us particular concern and anxiety, about those fundamental threats that year after year, step by step, are rudely and unceremoniously created by irresponsible politicians in the West in relation to our country. I mean the expansion of the Nato bloc to the east, bringing its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders.
It isn't obvious that China is dealing with the same sort of pressures in East Asia.
[0] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-putin-s-declar... - although technically I suspect he was declaring Special Military Operation.
If NATO anxiety was the primary factor for the war in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't be so blasé about draining troops and hardware from its borders with NATO countries to throw them into the meat-grinder.
They would still probably do it, mind you, but it would be a huge scandal and a subject of existential dread for Russian media and elites.
The fact that they've been stripping their NATO borders bare with barely anyone noticing or caring shows that nobody views the prospect of a NATO invasion as realistic. It was always a fig leaf.
(Although maybe there were scandals and I never heard of them. My exposure to Russian media is filtered through Western media. But I heard about other scandals and anxieties.)
Nobody has ever suggested that there was a prospect of a NATO invasion of Russia. That is crazy talk; it'd be the end of civilisation in the northern hemisphere. They aren't deploying troops to ward off a NATO invasion, that is what the ICBMs are for.
So what's really going on? Well, Putin said "rudely". Russia feels insulted because everybody wants to be in NATO, and nobody wants to be Russia's buddy... if you take Putin's words at face value.
If you don't, then I think Putin is terrified of Ukraine's revolution against a Russia-friendly leader. He doesn't want a western-friendly revolution in a culturally-Russian-adjacent country to succeed - there's too much chance that Russians might decide that they like the idea.
The way the Ukraine war has played out makes it pretty clear the Russians did have legitimate concerns. When the US invades Iraq with no moral justification, everyone moves on. When Russia invades Ukraine with no moral justification we see a similar response from most of the world ... except NATO that goes in and orchestrates what Wikipedia suggests are half a million casualties of the Russian armed forces [1].
Why might Russian military planners feel this is a threat? Because they can count corpses and they're not stupid. If you want to argue that they underestimated the threat NATO posed them in Ukraine and so Putin was lying that is one thing, but if so his propaganda happened to be truer to reality than he thought because he made a great point. NATO is out to get the Russians.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain...
Except there was no "full military integration" in the works, or even any "gear" deployed in Ukraine before Putin started throwing his massy hissy fit in 2014.
Because the major point of that infrastructure is to kill lots of Russians?
The point is to gently remind the current regime of the borders of NATO states, and of this thing known as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
There were none, this "eventually" was an empty consolation without any timeframe, and was widely criticized as such at the time. No gear, no integration - and no desire to move in that direction.
> And that was even before the 2014 coup that coincidentally set up a pro-NATO government.
There was no coup in Ukraine. Ukraine became very interested in the military alliance after Russia invaded them.
> If NATO anxiety was the primary factor for the war in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't be so blasé about draining troops and hardware from its borders with NATO countries to throw them into the meat-grinder
Because the major point of that infrastructure is to kill lots of Russians if they invade.
> Why might Russian military planners feel this is a threat? Because they can count corpses and they're not stupid.
Because they can count corpses after they invaded.
The logical conclusion was "don't invade", not "hurry up and invade while you still can".
They already know it. The European part of Russia is practically undefended, everything has been committed to Ukraine. When Prigozhin marched on Moscow, there was nothing to oppose him other than a few bucket loaders to dig up roads.
Russians are huffing and puffing about NATO because it makes riskier and costlier for them to invade other countries and kill people there. That's the simple truth. Everything else is bullshit and the theories you are spinning do not hold up to any scrutiny.
Nothing of this is new. In the 1940s, Russians acted the same way. Demanded neutrality and "military cooperation" and all the other fine euphemism you present us, then invaded their neighbors, set up communist dictatorships and began sending by hundreds of thousands everyone from toddlers to bed-ridden elderly to labor camps in the Siberian wilderness or executed them on the spot, and opened floodgates to massive resettlement of ethnic Russians to wipe natives off the map. It's still in the living memory. Nobody wants to relive that again, which is why this time nobody intends to make themselves an easy target with neutrality again and countries have only increased military cooperation the more hostile Russia has become.
This whole paragraph isn't a serious argument. Putin was born in the 1950s and while it might be in living memory none of the leadership class involved in this were alive in the 1940s, the economic concerns of the pre-WWII world were different to the modern era, and Russia had a dramatic shift of government philosophy in the 90s.
You may as well make policy on the basis that the British have global imperial ambitions, that the Germans are genocidal, that the Japanese are threatening to invade the Philippines or that the US has a small government. You can't lumber people with the assumption that their government is going to behave the same as in the 1940s.
> Russians are huffing and puffing about NATO because it makes riskier and costlier for them to invade other countries and kill people there. That's the simple truth. Everything else is bullshit and the theories you are spinning do not hold up to any scrutiny.
Can you articulate my theories? Because you seem to be in furious agreement on this point, you just haven't managed to take the next logical step and append some serious reflection and a "Did the policies we adopted make the situation better or worse? And who for?" on the end. Because we seem to have adopted a position that has left almost literally everyone involved and most of the bystanders in a worse position than if NATO hadn't been posturing against the Russians for the last 30 years. Driven, I suspect, by the same inane tiger-with-unchanging-stripes logic that you are suggesting.
And even if that logic is right, looking to the 1940s should come with a "and policy today has to be completely different to avoid the large and catastrophic war that then followed". Not this gentle escalatory madness that is taking place and the breakdown of communication and empathy that many people seem to want. The big lesson of WWII is Europe can't afford to solve their problems with big military actions. The NATO strategy of avoiding diplomacy suggests we are going to relearn that lesson which is moderately terrifying.
This is exactly the same blueprint as was used in 1940 to occupy Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Russians even tried the same with Finland and established Finnish Democratic Republic, which had to be scrapped after Finns put up a stiff resistance and Russians lost the Winter War. And they continued with this after the WWII to set up communist dictatorships all across Europe, same blueprint over and over again. Local population "invites" and Russians flood in with tanks and guns to "help".
If you know history, then this is like watching a re-run.
Your theories have nothing to do with facts on the ground. You say that NATO has been posturing against Russia. Nothing could be further from the truth.MILITARY SPENDING of Europe had continued to steadily decrease since the end of the Cold War. In 2006, the total spending was 190 billion. By 2014, it was down to 162 billion. As a percentage of GDP, Cold War era spending was 3-5%, now it's 1-2%.
EUROPEAN MILITARY CAPABILITIES have been in steep decline too. In 1990, German Army had 308 000 personnel, 5045 tanks, 2136 IFVs. To cut costs, Germany disbanded most of its army and sold off its equipment all over the world, as far as Chile. By 2015, only 61 312 personnel, 225 tanks and 406 remained. The same trends were mirrored in other countries.
AMERICAN MILITARY PRESENCE in Europe was also in decline. In 1987, the US had 80 military bases in Europe. 30 years later, less than half remained. Furthermore, these bases are a shadow of their former self: the number of US military personnel deployed to Europe is at the lowest since the WWII, down from 320 000 during the 1980s to around 60 000 nowadays, mostly manning facilities like the massive military hospital at Ramstein airbase. In 1989, US Army had 5000 tanks in Germany alone. In 2013, the last twenty American tanks departed Europe.
NEW DEPLOYMENTS TO EUROPE were ridiculously small, mainly light infantry for host nation training purposes: as of 2017, a single non-permanent battalion with 800 personnel and 4 jets in Estonia, a 1200-strong battalion in Latvia and another in Lithuania with 4 jets, and 4000-strong armored battalion in Poland. Plus 4 jets in Romania for three months in the summer. Is this the infamous "encirclement"?
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS is an adequate comparison only insofar as it applies to Russian behavior. Russia and NATO agreed in the founding act of 1997 that NATO would not station any missiles in Eastern Europe. NATO has upheld that commitment for a quarter of a century. NATO nuclear missiles remain where they we...
They did stop. There was that long period from 1990 to 2014 where they were withdrawing their military influence. The area controlled by Moscow's is going to have shrunk over my lifetime even at current rates of conquest. We could have kept that 25-year period going if the treatment of the Russian state had been a bit more welcoming instead of rapping them over the knuckles for being naive.
> [various caps-locked sections]
There are a lot of reasons why a war might not have happened, but given that a war has actually happened it only makes sense to look why it did. The NATO budget was allowed to shrink because the USSR budget imploded - NATO was still outspending Russia by more than 10:1. Frankly it has been pretty stunning how well the Russians have held up over the last 2 years to the point where I suspect the Chinese are more actively involved than it looks.
Russia isn't complaining about what is happening in Germany, France and the UK. They're complaining about what is happening in the likes of Ukraine and Georgia. And I doubt they are as much worried by US troop deployments as they are by exactly the situation that has played out in Ukraine. Slav troops, NATO weapons and EU logistical support.
> a single non-permanent battalion with 800 personnel and 4 jets in Estonia, a 1200-strong battalion in Latvia and another in Lithuania with 4 jets, and 4000-strong armored battalion in Poland. Plus 4 jets in Romania for three months in the summer. Is this the infamous "encirclement"?
Yes. If not for encircling Russia, what use is Estonia to the US? Why else put military resources there? It is part of a broad-based strategy of lots of Russians dying if the situation gets hot. I don't think anyone would really disagree with that assessment, but the Russians are quite vocal that they'd rather it wasn't so.
> NATO nuclear missiles remain where they were 50 years ago
The specific deployment of those missiles isn't really the point; the point is that the US would never tolerate a whisper of something like NATO but directed against the US on the American continent. Russia not tolerating NATO on their borders is a pretty reasonable attitude compared to what the mirror-image US response would be.
But, that said, NATO leadership are liars. They said they weren't going to expand NATO, then they did. If they say they aren't going to station missiles in their new military allies you'd be a bit gullible to believe that. It is believable if they say missiles won't be stationed until they are sure Russia can't do anything about it.
> Where is this posturing that you talk about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO - or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_NATO_enlargeme... if you like visuals.
But even those difficulties did not prevent Russia from using the same old blueprint of coming to the "rescue" of "oppressed minority" time and time again, as much as their means allowed. From Crimea and Donbas in 2014, to Georgia in 2008, to Abkhazia and Transnistria and others in the 1990s, to Afghanistan in the 1980s, to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956, and countless other "missions in support of brotherly nations", the chain of intrusions into other countries remains unbroken.
Money is meaningless metric when Russian military relies on the massive stockpiles created many decades ago. In Europe, much of that spending went towards destroying Cold War era stockpiles to cut long-term storage costs. As a result, Germany has less tanks in its entire arsenal than Russia has lost in Ukraine in the past few weeks, and in the few weeks prior to that, and in the few weeks prior to that too. In total, Russia has lost 40 times the entire German tank fleet. There were no permanent American "military resources" in Estonia, or anywhere else in Eastern Europe, before Russia invaded Ukraine. The US already tolerates it. China has military installations on Cuba, which is more than there ever was in Eastern Europe. The entire Europe tolerates nuclear missiles aimed at them from Kaliningrad. Nobody has promised that, or has even been in a position to give such promises. Here's Gorbachev calling it directly a myth, and his defense minister saying that he's never heard about it: https://x.com/splendid_pete/status/1650735533826375680 I don't. Put it into words, if you can. If you are trying to argue that European countries cannot freely choose to cooperate with each other, then Russia has reiterated in multiple treaties their respect (at least in words) for sovereign countries to choose their allies. Huffing and puffing about NATO became mainstream in Russia years after Eastern Europe had entered the organization; as Putin began the ...And you can see the Russian's have learned from that with things like the '08 invasion of Georgia. They only occupied portions of the country instead of the whole thing and it sounds like they're maintaining the legal fiction that they are independent.
> There were no permanent American "military resources" in Estonia, or anywhere else in Eastern Europe, before Russia invaded Ukraine.
So? I doubt there was much if anything in the way of permanent military resources in Ukraine and we've seen around half a million Russian causalities so far. That sort of outcome is a much bigger problem for them than whether the resources in Estonia are permanent or temporary.
If you don't want to explore the question of why the US had/has troops in Estonia of all places then don't bring it up. But I suspect that is a question of great interest to the Russian generals because it is hard to come up with alternatives to it being an anti-Russia encirclement.
> China has military installations on Cuba
Not much of a comparison though. Cuba doesn't have land borders with the US so any aggression has to go through the US Navy first, and China isn't in a position to supply Cuba with more materiel because that would also have to go through the US Navy and Cuba is on the wrong side of the America for easy access. Plus the US military budget is still something like 2-3x China's.
It is hard to see how the Cubans, even with the military might of the Chinese behind them, can leverage that position into half a million dead US citizens. What is the battle plan supposed to be to achieve that?
> The entire Europe tolerates nuclear missiles aimed at them from Kaliningrad.
And there is a lesson there - once the missiles are emplaced there isn't much you can do about them. The important thing is to either negotiate them away or not let hostile powers establish themselves.
> Here's Gorbachev calling it directly a myth...
1) I've watched enough politics that I don't believe a 2-minute out-of-context translated clip to be evidence.
2) I doubt Russians have paper commitments for every possible way that the US can get missiles on their border either. You could just as easily be back in 2040 explaining that the nuclear battery in Estonia was never specifically banned by a treaty because [reasons]. If they'd realised they were signing up for 30 years of NATO expansion they would have asked for more guarantees in writing.
> I don't. Put it into words, if you can.
In the 1990s the Russians reached the point where they couldn't maintain their status as an international superpower. The US response has been to spend 30 years encircling them with a hostile military alliance with both the threat and now reality of killing 10s if not 100s of thousands of Russians.
This is what would be termed "aggressive posturing". As an alternative, defensive posturing involves not advancing and not orchestrating meat grinders.
> All in all, your position appears to stand on known falsehoods:
I still don't think you can articulate the argument here. I don't think 1 is true at all - the hope by everyone when the USSR fell was that those countries would be welcomed into international organisations.
2. To sign up with NATO the US has to agree that it is in their interests. But I also agree that the countries involved were signing up enthusiastically. No-one is claiming they were compelled.
3. This seems like an accurate characterisation on first read, but I'm also obviously correct in the argument here. he US has been pouring materiel into Ukraine. It is reasonable to ...
1. Russians were kicked out of Europe because their entire economy collapsed and they became unable to field occupying armies anymore. This is not a proof of "change of government philosophy".
2. Withdrawal suits much better to describe American forces in Europe. They removed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, almost all heavy weaponry, and closed half of all military installations as a policy choice.
3. Russians were back to their old tricks by mid-1990s and that drove Eastern Europe to seek security from NATO.
4. The US has had infantry in Estonia for training purposes. Estonians are specialists in camouflage, small unit tactics and winter warfare, while the Americans have a lot to teach about combined arms warfare. Estonia has hosted many countries, Poland has had air defense systems set up and Swedish air force has flown simulated missions against them. That's what friendly nations do.
5. Foreign deployments have been intentionally limited to insignificant numbers so that Russia could not credibly claim to be threatened, but Russians are nevertheless annoyed. Not because they have a delusion that a few hundred infantrymen can "encircle" a country that spans 11 timezones, but because lauching missiles at Estonian barracks (like Ukraine saw on 24th February 2022) could potentially kill hundreds of Americans and drag the US into the war on day one.
6. If you want to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in Cuba, then an ill-prepared invasion along the lines of the Bay of Pigs would be great idea. When the invasion fails, keep sending hundreds of thousands of fresh troops into Cuba year after year. Don't forget to blame China if they help Cuba out with ammo.
7. Placement of NATO missiles in Europe was already negotiated in 1997 and NATO has sticked to their commitments. Only Russia has been inching closer to the other side.
8. If Gorbachev directly calling the "NATO promises" a myth is not good enough for you, then here's the foreign minister of the USSR giving a longer interview repeating the same things. According to him, nothing of this sort was discussed with Western diplomats, Warsaw Pact, or within communist party circles in Moscow. As a bonus, he says that he finds nothing wrong with the way Eastern Europe joined NATO: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-e...
9. That everyone "welcomed" Central and Eastern Europe into international organizations. Memoirs of diplomats, politicians and other representatives are littered with stories how no-one even took the countries they represented as actual countries, let alone viewed as even remote candidates to organizations. Early proponents of the EU and NATO membership were openly ridiculed even domestically. Go visit a library, read old newspapers, it's all there.
10. Integration of Central and Eastern Europe into the European Union and NATO has been a phenomenal success and has produced some of the most stable and prosperous countries on the planet. My first salary barely 30 years ago was 27 USD a month. Nowadays, it surpasses the average of several countries in Western Europe. Integration roadmaps helped CEE countries develop into modern states that have separation of powers, respect human rights, are run by law and offer ample opportunities. In alternative timeline, the 100 million people who gained freedom could've ended up in Russian-controlled totalitarian dictatorships like Belarus. That may not have a meaningful impact on your life, but it very much does have on mine.
11. Again, nobody was "pouring weapons into Ukraine" before Russia invaded. And nowadays, military aid to Ukraine - including heavy weaponry - is coming from all continents except Antarctica. If only pengu...
Why do you say Regan? Nixon normalized relations, Clinton let it into the WTO, and those seem to be the most significant events.
> Reagan had been a prominent spokesman on behalf of Taiwan in the political arena, but his advisors convinced him to announce in his 1980 campaign that he would continue the opening to China. Haig argued strenuously that the People's Republic of China could be a major ally against the Soviet Union. Beijing refused to accept any two-China policy but agreed to postpone any showdown. As President, Reagan issued the "Six Assurances" to Taiwan and a joint communique with the PRC reaffirming the one-China policy.[31] As the Cold War wound down during Reagan's second term, and Shultz replaced Haig, the need for China as an ally faded away. Shultz focused much more on economic trade with Japan. Beijing warmly welcomed the president when he visited in 1984.[32]
> In commercial space travel, Reagan backed a plan which allowed American satellites to be exported and launched on China's Long March rockets.[33][34] This was criticized by Bill Nelson, then a Florida representative, as delaying U.S.'s own commercial space development, while industry leaders criticized the idea of a nation-state competing with private entities in the rocketry market.[35] The China satellite export deal continued through Bush and Clinton administrations.[34]
Compare to what it has for Clinton, which is too long to quote fully: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_Bill_Cli..., and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_Bill_Cli...:
> Clinton's highest priority was to maintain trade with China, boost American exports, expand investment in the huge Chinese market, and create more jobs at home.[24] By granting China temporary most favoured nation status in 1993, his administration minimized tariff levels in Chinese imports. Clinton initially conditioned extension of this status on Chinese human rights reforms, but ultimately decided to extend the status despite a lack of reform in the specified areas of free emigration, no exportation of goods made with prison labor, release of peaceful protesters, treatment of prisoners in terms of international human rights, recognition of the distinct regional culture of type at, permitting international television and radio coverage, and observation of human rights specified by United Nations resolutions.
> In 1998, Clinton paid a friendly nine-day visit to China. Albright defended the trip by saying, "Engagement does not mean endorsement."[28] In 1999 Clinton signed a landmark trade agreement with China. The agreement–the result of more than a decade of negotiations–would lower many trade barriers between the two countries, making it easier to export U.S. products such as automobiles, banking services, and motion pictures. The Chinese citizens ability to afford and purchase U.S. goods should have been taken into consideration. However, the agreement could only take effect if China was accepted into the WTO and was granted permanent "normal trade relations" status by the U.S. Congress. Under the pact, the United States would support China's membership in the WTO. Many Democrats as well as Republicans were reluctant to grant permanent status to China because they were concerned about human rights in the country and the impact of Chinese imports on U.S. industries and jobs. Congress, however, voted in 2000 to grant permanent normal trade relations with China.[29] In 2000, Clinton signed a bill granting pe...
For whatever flaws the US has and the atrocities it has committed China isn't going to suddenly start spreading democracy around the world.
> Shall we foolishly end up on the other side of that?
Do you really think there's a chance the US would suffer from food lines and other shortages due to over-investment in defense a la the Soviet Union?
https://imgur.com/a/paranoid-dictatorship-forbids-bikes-lk9G...
This is a refurbished bike pump gun, firing up and recycling remolded plastic pellets with botox inside. Easy to make anywhere .
To democratic, to low tech? not enough government handouts?
How about this? shotgunshells and 4 cameras and it can hop around cleaning trenches and houses? much more democratic arsenal?
How about coilgun gliderdrone artillery?
https://imgur.com/a/sad-ie8Ezsk
Cheap, decentralized, they sail all day over a area waiting for that call to fold and strike? Everyone can make and coilgun a guncotton glider. No takers? Anyone.
Arsenal of democracy my ass. Imperial restocking after selling out all values.
https://imgur.com/a/hedgehog-De90woA
No. Various other factors including large alliances, trade risks, etc can deter war. And by far the biggest "deterrent" among our military technologies is nuclear weaponry, which relies on 1940s technology, thus undermining the essay's thesis that we need to innovate more in defense to prevent war.
With that said, many of the essay's suggestions are sound recommendations for improving the USA's ailing defense industry. I think that the consolidation of companies into a small number of conglomerates is particularly damaging.
This deck feels like it was unearthed from a time capsule buried in 2010. "The Pentagon operated like a startup." Woof. "Move fast and break things" is maybe not the ideal motto when lives are at stake.
---
Overall, a new arms race is not the answer. No serious person thinks arms races are good ideas. They are highly dangerous, especially at this level of technology. What works is diplomacy and a common cause against scarcity.
Beware the military-industrial complex indeed.