I regret that I had to delete a comment thread that degenerated into name-calling without bringing in any useful insights or information. I also deleted a few other comments with zero-information but high emotional content. For now, I haven't banned the offenders, but I will if they persist.
The war in Ukraine is a horrible failure of international politics. It has killed more than a million of people and caused enormous amount of human misery. It is very sad that things resulted in this outcome. I understand that many people rightly feel very emotional about it. Each side blames the other.
But this Substack is not a place for you to vent your frustrations and hatred at each other. There are substantive questions, separate from whose fault this war is. Social scientists need to study warfare in a dispassionate manner, no matter how ugly this subject of the study is.
As I predicted at the time, since Russia doesn't lose existential wars and Ukraine was obviously a NATO steppingstone to grab Russian resources (Rand indiscreetly published a study about breaking Russia into 5 countries), Ukraine was not going to be an exception,..In this case, Ukraine's inferior military and industrial base, including NATO's, made it a sure thing...Russia having 6,000 nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles made it clear that this war was a fool's errand...
If one releases the assumption that the point of the war was to win it (in conventional military terms) then the war starts to make more sense for the losing side.
As has been long noted, the war isn't meant to be won, it's meant to be permanent.
The warmongers never learn the same lessons as the victims of our wars of choice. The victims (physical, political, and financial*) learn that war is horrific, obscene, ruinous, and deadly. The warmongers learn that war is immensely profitable, provides endless opportunity for political power grabs, and renders half the population senseless with retarded patriotic jingoism (making all the above far more easy to achieve and exploit).
*Note: the victims are distributed across all parties to the war. American citizens and taxpayers and military recruits have been every bit as much victims of America's wars of choice as were the Vietnamese civilian population, for just one example.
In summary, neither America nor NATO is losing this war. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are losing it, Ukrainian civilians are losing it, and American and NATO and EU civilians are losing it. All are being ruthlessly exploited for fun and profit.
The European "ledaers", who have very little agency, if any at all, require the Ukraine war
- to explain to their people why they are increasing militart spending to 5%
which in reality they do to
- subsidise the US wespons industry, and/or
- be ready when ordered to open a second front in the west when the US attacks China.
For similar reasons, what is happening in Juneau is a charade, not any negotiations. If the US would negotiate it would not threaten Russia but throw in some token freebies, such as return of stolen/frozen real estate instead of a dumb opening with demands for a cesefire. The US has not even mentioned a single time what Russia's aim is (eg. demilitarisation, security architecture, ....)
The Trump administration continues the policies of Biden, i. e. re. genocide and the goings on in Ukraine. A current problem for the US might be arms supply.
Eurocrats need the war to keep their population in line and force on them their federal agenda as it is less and less popular. Increasing military spending is the charade. Even if it can be politically useful to buy some weapons from the US as a way to get some benevolence from them. It's more a toll than anything else.
I don't think Alaska meeting is a charade. Putin and Trump have genuine points to discuss. And if Trump would just follow Biden's policies, he would not have been so bitterly fought by the american deep state since 2016. He is trying to change things. Not everybody like it. And nobody knows if he will succeed.
And an "European second front" ? This is mere illusion... there will never be such a thing. There will neither be the manpower nor the will to do so in Europe...
"Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives.
...
However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace."
Right. And that has nothing about "breaking Russia into 5 countries," or at all. It was about keeping Russia from launching additional aggressive wars - by extending it.
Georgia. Moldova, Ukraine and Ukraine - and Chechyna, or half of it.
Just watch Russian state media - Vladimir Solovyov on Russia-1, Olga Skabeyeva and Yevgeny Popov, Margarita Simonyan, Dmitry Kiselyov - all that bluster. It's all just talk ...
But maybe this is a question worth asking: Is it really true that the Asabiyyah of the two sides is equal, which I believe you assume is the case?
I would have thought this would be much higher amongst Ukrainians than Russians.
Ukraine might be a plutocracy, but they are fighting for their homes and I doubt if the Ukrainian officer elite treat their troops with the level of contempt displayed by the Russians.
I don't think that this statement is factually correct: "Ukraine might be a plutocracy, but they are fighting for their homes and I doubt if the Ukrainian officer elite treat their troops with the level of contempt displayed by the Russians." It rather reflects a very one-sided view of the conflict, as portrayed in MSM.
Could you please refer to some sources that are accurate on this? Are all the claims about Russian corpses being left to rot on the battlefield and Russian officers stealing the money to feed their troops made up? Or are the Ukrainians equally bad in this respect?
The article does something rare: it uses data and a scientific model to test opposing predictions about the war in Ukraine. The author compares two extreme views—Ukrainian victory versus Russian victory—and measures them with a model focused on human and material attrition. While he admits reality has shifted, especially with the rise of drones, the trend suggests that optimistic forecasts for Ukraine don’t match what’s actually happening. Beyond the outcome, it’s a reminder that opinions should be tested against facts and numbers, not just ideology or official narratives.
It is no scientific model. He gets not the basic data right. According to him the german army made 3 million loses and there were 80 millions inhabitants and they lost because of this ratio. But then explain why the sowiet army had 10 million loses with 170 millions inhabitants. It doesn't make any sense. The german army had indeed 5,7 million loses, 3 on the eastern Front. So the sowiets had 3 times more loses. The german army consisted of appromixately 18-19 Millionens. So 30% loses. 50% of men in the army.
If you go with this simple data you know that russia can not win this war. It is simple. They have 3 times higher loses in the same way as in WW2. Because they fight in the same way. They had problems with general mobilisation (200.000 generated and millions of russian men left russia). So they take "volunteers" weich do it for money so that the family can survive. This is not endless.
There is no valid data for your thesis. The hole model is based on Putin lies the whole shell attrition warfare is based on ritter-lies. Because the russian never captured a lot of land. But they had at this times more shells.
You're not wrong, but this is an extremely spurious framing: your prediction isn't the iconoclast's position at all like you've argued in this essay.
Most foreign policy elites in 2022 expected that Ukraine would collapse within days or weeks upon invasion. And that was a reasonable prediction to make, considering how the earlier 2014 phase of the conflict went. That Ukraine is still standing under the same regime over three years later is, if anything, a shock.
Also, are you seriously suggesting that the "MSM" is the "official" American government position? Have you not noted that Donald Trump is the US president, and that not a day goes by without him lambasting and ridiculing that same MSM?
Have you not noted that the most popular news outlet for decades is... Fox News! They have 200 million American eyeballs to the NYT's pathetic 11 million. There is a feedback loop between that outlet (which has far more claim to be "America's Pravada" and not just this Republican Administration, but the last two before it, going back to the beginning of the century. And what is and has been Fox News' position on the validity and fate of the Ukrainian position for the last several years?
So, yes, congrats that you're saying the same thing that almost everyone has been saying since the beginning of the conflict: the Ukrainians are David against Russia's Goliath and they probably never could have "won" in the terms that some Western leaders have claimed in public (but certainly didn't believe in private). But what else would you have them do than resort to a Straussian dual-position? Even if you think the Ukrainians are doomed, you don't say it publicly in the midst of helping them try to find the best possible bargaining position for some sustainable end-state! That's not naiveté, it's negotiation!
Your portrayal of the established American elite opinion towards the war is incorrect. In the first month or two, indeed, there was a general expectation that Ukraine was about to collapse. We now know that this was not a realistic scenario because the Russian force operating in Ukraine was outnumbered 2:1 or so. Later in 2022 Russian retreat from Kiev, Sumy, Kharkov and Kherson was interpreted that Russia was a paper tiger. The mainstream opinion completely reversed itself, and there were triumphalist expectations of Ukrainian victory and Russian humiliation. This opinion persisted and started to break down only recently. Thus, the results of my model, developed in 2023, were in agreement with such dissidents as Larry Johnson, Douglas McGregor, Andrei Martyanov, etc; while being diametrically opposed to the mainstream view.
On the "American Pravda": My understanding of the War in Ukraine as a proxy war between NATO and Russia, and the motivations of the American political elites in starting it, are explained at length in End Wars. The election of Donald Trump represents the overthrow of these elites by counter-elites, as I've written in a series of posts on this Substack. There were high expectations by the MAGA base that Trump would walk away from this conflict, portraying it as Biden's mistake (e.g. MTG). For reasons that are not entirely clear, Trump decided to "own" this conflict (at least so far). In fact, there is a lot of continuity in foreign affairs between the Biden and Trump regimes (which, I admit, somewhat undermines my view of the Trump regime as a revolutionary one).
To conclude, I disagree with your critique. My position is internally consistent and factually based (as much as we currently know). But of course I couldn't reflect all this complexity in a blog post, you'd need to read my other writings (especially End Times) for a fuller treatment.
Your model is incorrect. Your basic data is complete wrong. Russia can not win this war and achieve his goals. It should be clear. The lose-rate is 3 times higher for russia. I don't know why you don't get in.
You are correct that Fox is the most viewed news channel, but your decimal point is slightly off. Their average viewership is 2.4 million, not 200 million. And, since you obviously need help with math (and probably most critical thinking as well), let me help you to see that 2.4 million is a lot less than the 11.88 million NYT subscribers.
I wasn't referring to subscribers. I'm talking *reach,* which is a distinct thing. Firstly, you can't (well, you can, but usually don't) subscribe to Fox News alone like you do the NYT. You subscribe to a cable package *including* Fox News. And that's the home viewer. When you travel in public places all over the United States, what are you very likely to see on screens, from bars to airports? That same familiar, droning presence.
So thats why TV viewership stats aren't defined the same way as newspaper or digital outlets. But could we come up with something equivalent, like Monthly Active Users (MAU)? Even there, Fox News distinguishes itself even further: the MSM viewer or reader is generally omnivorous and disloyal, dipping into CNN, nytimes.com, and the dozens of other "liberal media" sources. The Fox News viewer is a diehard superfan. The channel can claim MAUs in the tens of millions. And that's without bundling in its digital offerings.
And this is talking about 20th Century media properties, which aren't even where the growth and volume really is anymore. The audience, both the normie CNN and Fox News viewer, is getting cannibalized or replaced by a emerging audience who gets their "news" (if you could call it that) primarily from social media. This undercuts Turchin's thesis even further, since the MSM is now a *minority* of the "real news" audience, which is itself a rapidly-shrinking minority of the information/infotainment space now dominated by influencers, opinion, shitposting and propaganda.
So, who f*cking cares what NYT columnists are saying about the Ukraine War, anymore? The general public is full of casuals who get their news from amateurs on short-form video and even the policy apparatus is run by literal entertainers who make decisions largely based on "how it's playing with the audience at home."
And Turchin is still talking from Chomsky's "Manufacturing Dissent" era. At times I wish it were that easy! That's not the monoculture we occupy anymore, for better or for worse.
I'm a European, living in Europe, I read and support most of End Times and recommend Turchin's blog to my friends, I also follow Paul Kruger's. This latest post from Peter and some characterisations from his book raises unease wrt his repeated hard scientist claims:
1. Pretending that the war in Ukraine is a NATO engineered conflict is Putin's propaganda. NATO includes most of the EU members, and ther was no conceivable threat coming from NATO. In fact attacking Ukraine was not Putin's goal,His was just to send some elite troops, à la Budapest or à la Prague from the good old soviet days., just to remove an inconvenient upstart leader to re-establish a Russian stooge. It failed miserably.And that failure changed the nature of the fight, into an attrition war.NATO was not the threat, it was considered brain dead by Macron a short 3 to 4 years? Back.Putin revived NATO, caused the Scandinavian to join. So the claim of an existential threat is just BS.
2. To qualify Paul Kruger as channelling the official American position is laughable, and only throw a veil of suspicion onto your demonstration, the comment was unnecessary, and as you mentioned in other comments about subtile demeaning tactics when translating poorly Russian by the Brits , you're doing the same here and it doesn't help credibility. Can you link the Krugman's article.
3. Ukraine is a plutocracy still? Zelensky was a cómic actor, not a plutocrat, but you insist on this qualifier, as if to demean Ukraine.
Putting all this together shakes the independent reader confidence in your self proclaimed scientist approach. The qualifiers were unnecessary and sadly lowered your credibility in this reader's judgement.
"But some people are capable of independent thought" meaning (1) you are "some people" and therefore judge and party, and (2) your critics are necessarily incapable of independent thought... That comment not only does not address my critics on the substance, but resorts to the old , antique "ad personam" attack, a red herring of sorts, sadly reinforcing my analysis. I had hoped you would at least address the most important 1st criticism on the NATO induced war (the other two being minor) .
Hmm, I thought that the meaning of my response would be clear, but if not, let's unpack. The critique "Turchin is far from unbiased. He pushes too many Kremlin talking points, including patently false ones" breaks two rules of this Substack.
First, it is not substantive. It doesn't explain why I am wrong. Furthermore, its implications are insulting. I am either a dunce for mindlessly repeating someone else's opinion, or I am a knave because I am paid for it. Edward didn't say it, but this is the kind of accusation you see on a lot of discussion threads that are poorly managed, or on X.
Second, it takes sides: any statement from Kremlin that goes against what MSM says is patently false. More on this here:
I absolutely agree with your first point. I can't say anything about the second point because I don't know who Kruger is. However, I wanted to write about the third point: "Is Ukraine still a plutocracy? Zelensky was a cómic actor, not a plutocrat, but you insist on this qualifier, as if to demean Ukraine. " In a plutocratic system, it doesn't matter what kind of president the plutocrats put in place (or tamed after the election). His previous profession and wealth do not matter. The system in Ukraine remains the same as it was.
To make Ukraine nonplutocratic, the state should either nationalize the oligarchs' companies (making the plutocrats weaker) or introduce a firm government that the plutocrats will fear. The Ukrainian state does not intend to do the former. If the people in power do something, it will be to nationalize the oligarchs' property in order to privatize their companies for themselves. And they will not go the second way.
The war gives the state an enormous amount of power, and in principle, this opportunity could be used to strike at the oligarchy. And it looked like Ukraine was trying to take advantage of this opportunity. But the EU immediately turned it back by ordering Ukraine to remain liberal, and as such, plutocratic. Ukraine is too dependent on EU support now to defy it. So, the (possible) attempt to stop being plutocratic was interrupted by the EU.
Since 2023, various analyses have claimed that the Ukrainian army has been facing shortage of manpower. However, despite these persistent assessments, Ukraine has continued to resist for the past three years, holding its ground both militarily and strategically. This sustained resilience demonstrates that such analyses do not accurately reflect the realities on the ground, as the Ukrainian forces have managed to maintain their operational capabilities, adapt to battlefield conditions, and continue defending their positions effectively.
Are there examples of this in other context? I agree with the assessment--definitely ominous for other things --but realized I can't necessarily point to many examples of this. I feel technological acceleration might count as one, but maybe there's something else that's more clear cut?
Personal and corporate bankruptcy, which is what the original "slowly then all at once" was about. People (or companies) whose income is less than their spending will usually be extended credit to cover the difference. This isn't usually a bad bet for the bank - most people's income rises over time and often overspending is a short-term issue. But some people act as if the credit is part of their regular income and keep overspending. Then a shock happens. It doesn't have to be a big shock - a small unexpected expense, a creditor not increasing the credit limit, an interest rate going up a little, and the whole house of cards collapses.
The judgement regarding US Economic Power by Paul "Kathryn" Krugman, seems not to have "provided a decisive advantage to Ukraine", as also a reader of "Ukraine V" pointed out back then. It seems the number of law graduates that can be placed in their own S Classes every year and other such data is not a good measure to predict war outcomes. Works such as "Disintegration: Indicators of the coming American Collapse" by fellow doomer Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press, 2021) apparently provide better indicators here.
PS: "Kathryn" refers to a person from "End Times", a 1%er, whose insights into the economy have very little to do with the realities of the bottom 60%.
I believe that these models do not take into account ideologies, as well as political and economic systems and the determination of the masses that are shaped by these ideologies. I am referring to 1. liberalism (free individuals who sign a contract with the state, free market economy, which means free businesses that are not restricted by the state's economic policy), 2. classical conservatism (a state that is able to impose its will on both businesses and the people with a firm hand, for their own benefit, as it sees it, resulting in a national economic policy and the education of the nation in a unified spirit, which should contribute to its cohesion).
If we bring these elements into view, we will see that Krugman's correct prediction is not realized because free businesses enter into negotiations with the state, demanding purchase guarantees, subsidies, exemptions, etc. On the other hand, in a conservative country, they simply fulfill the task given to them. Of course, if the war lasts for 10 years, the greater economic power of the West will eventually start to show and Russia will not be able to compete with it (as the USSR could not). In a relatively shorter period, however, conservatism has an advantage, and the Russian economy switched to the war effort more quickly and therefore has an advantage at first. The question is whether Russia will have time to defeat Ukraine during this temporary advantage. It is possible. The opposite is also possible: it will not have time, and then the economic superiority of the West will finally come into play.
This is just a single example of how conservatism gives an advantage to the weaker side, albeit for a short period. As a matter of fact, the entire rise of China should be attributed to the rejection of liberalism and the adherence to conservatism.
Returning to the war in Ukraine, we should also note the cohesion of the current Russian nation, which is the result of state propaganda and education in schools. Ukraine, which has embraced liberalism and all the possible freedoms that come with it, has no such cohesion (if there is some cohesion, it is caused by anger at the aggression and a desire for revenge).
From here we can move on to the second approach, which is based on losses. Perhaps this approach should not focus so much on the losses of one side as on the difference in the losses of the two sides and correlate it with the difference in population. But that is not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was that (at least from what we now know), the number of Ukrainian deserters exceeds the Russian figures. According to the statements of some members of the Ukrainian parliament, the number of deserters (400,000) is enormous and probably exceeds the number of those killed. And here again we have to go back to liberalism versus conservatism. Russian soldiers obviously have a disproportionately greater certainty of punishment if they desert. At the same time, in liberal Ukraine, deserters are not punished at all. They are simply urged to return (because “nothing will happen to them”).
In principle, Ukraine tried to follow the Russian path and tighten the screws, but the EU immediately reacted to such deviations from liberalism and Zelenskyy had to demonstrate active liberalism.
Thus, a new angle can show all the data in a different light.
This war has human faces. I know someone who has gone many times to deliver aid. And a family who now has Ukrainian members. It is not all theoretical and very brave people have stepped up. It has been a tough time.
@ Geoffrey G: I'll throw a seperate theory & factual data point in support of your position. Retired RAND researcher David Ronfeldt has published work on the rise of "Noopolitik" or Noosphere Politics in the age of global information networks. It is premisied on whose story is winning (literally the title of the supporting book "Whose Story Wins") on spreading across the networks and colonizing human minds. If Turchin's model does not treat information as infectious "winning stories" across connected networks of minds, then his information model is at best incomplete and at worst counter-predictive. Turchin admits his model is wrong, but still useful. How useful is the unknown. The fact I mentioned was that China is playing a big part in shaping younger cohorts minds on issues like the Ukraine war, as is shown in statistical models strongly showing how their algorithmic bias favors their positions on TicTok & Rednote when compared with X, Facebook, & others (from a recent Bulwark podcast).
Can anyone clarify on this point; “as we know, a new technology, drones, has gained importance during this conflict, and is now the prime killer, especially on the Ukrainian side”. The reports I’ve come across indicate a Kia ratio for 2025 that significantly favors Ukraine due to their more effective use of drones and expanded drone production. Is that what Turchin is referring to? Or is the reverse true; Russia has replicated its artillery superiority in drone production and deployment?
More than apparent, from the beginning of Russia's SMO against the contrived strategies of the Washington - London - Brussels Power Elite was that Russia would prevail and rewrite the Laws of Engagement, as did Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.
I regret that I had to delete a comment thread that degenerated into name-calling without bringing in any useful insights or information. I also deleted a few other comments with zero-information but high emotional content. For now, I haven't banned the offenders, but I will if they persist.
The war in Ukraine is a horrible failure of international politics. It has killed more than a million of people and caused enormous amount of human misery. It is very sad that things resulted in this outcome. I understand that many people rightly feel very emotional about it. Each side blames the other.
But this Substack is not a place for you to vent your frustrations and hatred at each other. There are substantive questions, separate from whose fault this war is. Social scientists need to study warfare in a dispassionate manner, no matter how ugly this subject of the study is.
See my archived posts on this:
https://peterturchin.com/why-social-scientists-need-to-study-war/
https://peterturchin.com/of-course-war-is-evil/
https://peterturchin.com/war-what-is-it-good-for/
As I predicted at the time, since Russia doesn't lose existential wars and Ukraine was obviously a NATO steppingstone to grab Russian resources (Rand indiscreetly published a study about breaking Russia into 5 countries), Ukraine was not going to be an exception,..In this case, Ukraine's inferior military and industrial base, including NATO's, made it a sure thing...Russia having 6,000 nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles made it clear that this war was a fool's errand...
No, Rand did not. You're spreading an untrue Kremlin talking points about this Rand study; https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB10000/RB10014/RAND_RB10014.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjXhoHQ9oyPAxUHKVkFHRaJIlQQFnoECCcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw20gfMooZk2oSGu4PL84GLT
The largest country on Earth (by far) faces no "existential crisis." Kaliningrad, nearly 500 km from Russia's western border, sits unbothered.
Russia faces threats of Putin & Co. making.
If one releases the assumption that the point of the war was to win it (in conventional military terms) then the war starts to make more sense for the losing side.
As has been long noted, the war isn't meant to be won, it's meant to be permanent.
The warmongers never learn the same lessons as the victims of our wars of choice. The victims (physical, political, and financial*) learn that war is horrific, obscene, ruinous, and deadly. The warmongers learn that war is immensely profitable, provides endless opportunity for political power grabs, and renders half the population senseless with retarded patriotic jingoism (making all the above far more easy to achieve and exploit).
*Note: the victims are distributed across all parties to the war. American citizens and taxpayers and military recruits have been every bit as much victims of America's wars of choice as were the Vietnamese civilian population, for just one example.
In summary, neither America nor NATO is losing this war. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are losing it, Ukrainian civilians are losing it, and American and NATO and EU civilians are losing it. All are being ruthlessly exploited for fun and profit.
And I believe this is exactly what Europeans leaders are trying to do as they desperately need an external threat if they want to stay in power...
The European "ledaers", who have very little agency, if any at all, require the Ukraine war
- to explain to their people why they are increasing militart spending to 5%
which in reality they do to
- subsidise the US wespons industry, and/or
- be ready when ordered to open a second front in the west when the US attacks China.
For similar reasons, what is happening in Juneau is a charade, not any negotiations. If the US would negotiate it would not threaten Russia but throw in some token freebies, such as return of stolen/frozen real estate instead of a dumb opening with demands for a cesefire. The US has not even mentioned a single time what Russia's aim is (eg. demilitarisation, security architecture, ....)
The Trump administration continues the policies of Biden, i. e. re. genocide and the goings on in Ukraine. A current problem for the US might be arms supply.
I'm not so sure. On both points.
Eurocrats need the war to keep their population in line and force on them their federal agenda as it is less and less popular. Increasing military spending is the charade. Even if it can be politically useful to buy some weapons from the US as a way to get some benevolence from them. It's more a toll than anything else.
I don't think Alaska meeting is a charade. Putin and Trump have genuine points to discuss. And if Trump would just follow Biden's policies, he would not have been so bitterly fought by the american deep state since 2016. He is trying to change things. Not everybody like it. And nobody knows if he will succeed.
And an "European second front" ? This is mere illusion... there will never be such a thing. There will neither be the manpower nor the will to do so in Europe...
For all to be enjoyed:
"Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground"
Rand Corp, 2019, PDF, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR3000/RR3063/RAND_RR3063.pdf
"Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives.
...
However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace."
Right. And that has nothing about "breaking Russia into 5 countries," or at all. It was about keeping Russia from launching additional aggressive wars - by extending it.
How many additional aggressive wars has Russia launched since 1990, compared to the USA?
I'll wait ...
Georgia. Moldova, Ukraine and Ukraine - and Chechyna, or half of it.
Just watch Russian state media - Vladimir Solovyov on Russia-1, Olga Skabeyeva and Yevgeny Popov, Margarita Simonyan, Dmitry Kiselyov - all that bluster. It's all just talk ...
putina and her state media are the warmongers. enjoy it, Z-boy
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
----- Yogi Berra
Hoping for a Black Swan.
"The first casualty of war is truth." – Aeschylus
Respect to you, Peter, for digging through the carnage and working to apply the facts to such a monstrous human failing.
I need to follow your links, Peter.
But maybe this is a question worth asking: Is it really true that the Asabiyyah of the two sides is equal, which I believe you assume is the case?
I would have thought this would be much higher amongst Ukrainians than Russians.
Ukraine might be a plutocracy, but they are fighting for their homes and I doubt if the Ukrainian officer elite treat their troops with the level of contempt displayed by the Russians.
I don't think that this statement is factually correct: "Ukraine might be a plutocracy, but they are fighting for their homes and I doubt if the Ukrainian officer elite treat their troops with the level of contempt displayed by the Russians." It rather reflects a very one-sided view of the conflict, as portrayed in MSM.
Could you please refer to some sources that are accurate on this? Are all the claims about Russian corpses being left to rot on the battlefield and Russian officers stealing the money to feed their troops made up? Or are the Ukrainians equally bad in this respect?
The article does something rare: it uses data and a scientific model to test opposing predictions about the war in Ukraine. The author compares two extreme views—Ukrainian victory versus Russian victory—and measures them with a model focused on human and material attrition. While he admits reality has shifted, especially with the rise of drones, the trend suggests that optimistic forecasts for Ukraine don’t match what’s actually happening. Beyond the outcome, it’s a reminder that opinions should be tested against facts and numbers, not just ideology or official narratives.
It is no scientific model. He gets not the basic data right. According to him the german army made 3 million loses and there were 80 millions inhabitants and they lost because of this ratio. But then explain why the sowiet army had 10 million loses with 170 millions inhabitants. It doesn't make any sense. The german army had indeed 5,7 million loses, 3 on the eastern Front. So the sowiets had 3 times more loses. The german army consisted of appromixately 18-19 Millionens. So 30% loses. 50% of men in the army.
If you go with this simple data you know that russia can not win this war. It is simple. They have 3 times higher loses in the same way as in WW2. Because they fight in the same way. They had problems with general mobilisation (200.000 generated and millions of russian men left russia). So they take "volunteers" weich do it for money so that the family can survive. This is not endless.
You have it the wrong way around. Ukrainian losses are much greater than Russian ones. Given their relative sizes this only ends in one way.
There is no valid data for your thesis. The hole model is based on Putin lies the whole shell attrition warfare is based on ritter-lies. Because the russian never captured a lot of land. But they had at this times more shells.
You're not wrong, but this is an extremely spurious framing: your prediction isn't the iconoclast's position at all like you've argued in this essay.
Most foreign policy elites in 2022 expected that Ukraine would collapse within days or weeks upon invasion. And that was a reasonable prediction to make, considering how the earlier 2014 phase of the conflict went. That Ukraine is still standing under the same regime over three years later is, if anything, a shock.
Also, are you seriously suggesting that the "MSM" is the "official" American government position? Have you not noted that Donald Trump is the US president, and that not a day goes by without him lambasting and ridiculing that same MSM?
Have you not noted that the most popular news outlet for decades is... Fox News! They have 200 million American eyeballs to the NYT's pathetic 11 million. There is a feedback loop between that outlet (which has far more claim to be "America's Pravada" and not just this Republican Administration, but the last two before it, going back to the beginning of the century. And what is and has been Fox News' position on the validity and fate of the Ukrainian position for the last several years?
So, yes, congrats that you're saying the same thing that almost everyone has been saying since the beginning of the conflict: the Ukrainians are David against Russia's Goliath and they probably never could have "won" in the terms that some Western leaders have claimed in public (but certainly didn't believe in private). But what else would you have them do than resort to a Straussian dual-position? Even if you think the Ukrainians are doomed, you don't say it publicly in the midst of helping them try to find the best possible bargaining position for some sustainable end-state! That's not naiveté, it's negotiation!
Your portrayal of the established American elite opinion towards the war is incorrect. In the first month or two, indeed, there was a general expectation that Ukraine was about to collapse. We now know that this was not a realistic scenario because the Russian force operating in Ukraine was outnumbered 2:1 or so. Later in 2022 Russian retreat from Kiev, Sumy, Kharkov and Kherson was interpreted that Russia was a paper tiger. The mainstream opinion completely reversed itself, and there were triumphalist expectations of Ukrainian victory and Russian humiliation. This opinion persisted and started to break down only recently. Thus, the results of my model, developed in 2023, were in agreement with such dissidents as Larry Johnson, Douglas McGregor, Andrei Martyanov, etc; while being diametrically opposed to the mainstream view.
On the "American Pravda": My understanding of the War in Ukraine as a proxy war between NATO and Russia, and the motivations of the American political elites in starting it, are explained at length in End Wars. The election of Donald Trump represents the overthrow of these elites by counter-elites, as I've written in a series of posts on this Substack. There were high expectations by the MAGA base that Trump would walk away from this conflict, portraying it as Biden's mistake (e.g. MTG). For reasons that are not entirely clear, Trump decided to "own" this conflict (at least so far). In fact, there is a lot of continuity in foreign affairs between the Biden and Trump regimes (which, I admit, somewhat undermines my view of the Trump regime as a revolutionary one).
To conclude, I disagree with your critique. My position is internally consistent and factually based (as much as we currently know). But of course I couldn't reflect all this complexity in a blog post, you'd need to read my other writings (especially End Times) for a fuller treatment.
Your model is incorrect. Your basic data is complete wrong. Russia can not win this war and achieve his goals. It should be clear. The lose-rate is 3 times higher for russia. I don't know why you don't get in.
You are correct that Fox is the most viewed news channel, but your decimal point is slightly off. Their average viewership is 2.4 million, not 200 million. And, since you obviously need help with math (and probably most critical thinking as well), let me help you to see that 2.4 million is a lot less than the 11.88 million NYT subscribers.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-channel-dominates-all-television-july-cnn-hits-rock-bottom-among-key-demo.amp
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/media/new-york-times-earnings.html
Slava Rossii!
I wasn't referring to subscribers. I'm talking *reach,* which is a distinct thing. Firstly, you can't (well, you can, but usually don't) subscribe to Fox News alone like you do the NYT. You subscribe to a cable package *including* Fox News. And that's the home viewer. When you travel in public places all over the United States, what are you very likely to see on screens, from bars to airports? That same familiar, droning presence.
So thats why TV viewership stats aren't defined the same way as newspaper or digital outlets. But could we come up with something equivalent, like Monthly Active Users (MAU)? Even there, Fox News distinguishes itself even further: the MSM viewer or reader is generally omnivorous and disloyal, dipping into CNN, nytimes.com, and the dozens of other "liberal media" sources. The Fox News viewer is a diehard superfan. The channel can claim MAUs in the tens of millions. And that's without bundling in its digital offerings.
And this is talking about 20th Century media properties, which aren't even where the growth and volume really is anymore. The audience, both the normie CNN and Fox News viewer, is getting cannibalized or replaced by a emerging audience who gets their "news" (if you could call it that) primarily from social media. This undercuts Turchin's thesis even further, since the MSM is now a *minority* of the "real news" audience, which is itself a rapidly-shrinking minority of the information/infotainment space now dominated by influencers, opinion, shitposting and propaganda.
So, who f*cking cares what NYT columnists are saying about the Ukraine War, anymore? The general public is full of casuals who get their news from amateurs on short-form video and even the policy apparatus is run by literal entertainers who make decisions largely based on "how it's playing with the audience at home."
And Turchin is still talking from Chomsky's "Manufacturing Dissent" era. At times I wish it were that easy! That's not the monoculture we occupy anymore, for better or for worse.
I'm a European, living in Europe, I read and support most of End Times and recommend Turchin's blog to my friends, I also follow Paul Kruger's. This latest post from Peter and some characterisations from his book raises unease wrt his repeated hard scientist claims:
1. Pretending that the war in Ukraine is a NATO engineered conflict is Putin's propaganda. NATO includes most of the EU members, and ther was no conceivable threat coming from NATO. In fact attacking Ukraine was not Putin's goal,His was just to send some elite troops, à la Budapest or à la Prague from the good old soviet days., just to remove an inconvenient upstart leader to re-establish a Russian stooge. It failed miserably.And that failure changed the nature of the fight, into an attrition war.NATO was not the threat, it was considered brain dead by Macron a short 3 to 4 years? Back.Putin revived NATO, caused the Scandinavian to join. So the claim of an existential threat is just BS.
2. To qualify Paul Kruger as channelling the official American position is laughable, and only throw a veil of suspicion onto your demonstration, the comment was unnecessary, and as you mentioned in other comments about subtile demeaning tactics when translating poorly Russian by the Brits , you're doing the same here and it doesn't help credibility. Can you link the Krugman's article.
3. Ukraine is a plutocracy still? Zelensky was a cómic actor, not a plutocrat, but you insist on this qualifier, as if to demean Ukraine.
Putting all this together shakes the independent reader confidence in your self proclaimed scientist approach. The qualifiers were unnecessary and sadly lowered your credibility in this reader's judgement.
Turchin is far from unbiased. He pushes too many Kremlin talking points, including patently false ones.
And definitely, Putin revitalized NATO and doubled his border with it.
It may come as a surprise, but some people are capable of independent thought and are able to evaluate even-handedly opposing claims.
Some people are. But you, here? Hardly.
"But some people are capable of independent thought" meaning (1) you are "some people" and therefore judge and party, and (2) your critics are necessarily incapable of independent thought... That comment not only does not address my critics on the substance, but resorts to the old , antique "ad personam" attack, a red herring of sorts, sadly reinforcing my analysis. I had hoped you would at least address the most important 1st criticism on the NATO induced war (the other two being minor) .
Hmm, I thought that the meaning of my response would be clear, but if not, let's unpack. The critique "Turchin is far from unbiased. He pushes too many Kremlin talking points, including patently false ones" breaks two rules of this Substack.
First, it is not substantive. It doesn't explain why I am wrong. Furthermore, its implications are insulting. I am either a dunce for mindlessly repeating someone else's opinion, or I am a knave because I am paid for it. Edward didn't say it, but this is the kind of accusation you see on a lot of discussion threads that are poorly managed, or on X.
Second, it takes sides: any statement from Kremlin that goes against what MSM says is patently false. More on this here:
https://peterturchin.substack.com/p/on-taking-sides
I absolutely agree with your first point. I can't say anything about the second point because I don't know who Kruger is. However, I wanted to write about the third point: "Is Ukraine still a plutocracy? Zelensky was a cómic actor, not a plutocrat, but you insist on this qualifier, as if to demean Ukraine. " In a plutocratic system, it doesn't matter what kind of president the plutocrats put in place (or tamed after the election). His previous profession and wealth do not matter. The system in Ukraine remains the same as it was.
To make Ukraine nonplutocratic, the state should either nationalize the oligarchs' companies (making the plutocrats weaker) or introduce a firm government that the plutocrats will fear. The Ukrainian state does not intend to do the former. If the people in power do something, it will be to nationalize the oligarchs' property in order to privatize their companies for themselves. And they will not go the second way.
The war gives the state an enormous amount of power, and in principle, this opportunity could be used to strike at the oligarchy. And it looked like Ukraine was trying to take advantage of this opportunity. But the EU immediately turned it back by ordering Ukraine to remain liberal, and as such, plutocratic. Ukraine is too dependent on EU support now to defy it. So, the (possible) attempt to stop being plutocratic was interrupted by the EU.
Since 2023, various analyses have claimed that the Ukrainian army has been facing shortage of manpower. However, despite these persistent assessments, Ukraine has continued to resist for the past three years, holding its ground both militarily and strategically. This sustained resilience demonstrates that such analyses do not accurately reflect the realities on the ground, as the Ukrainian forces have managed to maintain their operational capabilities, adapt to battlefield conditions, and continue defending their positions effectively.
This is the nature of nonlinear dynamics --- it happens slowly than all at once.
Are there examples of this in other context? I agree with the assessment--definitely ominous for other things --but realized I can't necessarily point to many examples of this. I feel technological acceleration might count as one, but maybe there's something else that's more clear cut?
Personal and corporate bankruptcy, which is what the original "slowly then all at once" was about. People (or companies) whose income is less than their spending will usually be extended credit to cover the difference. This isn't usually a bad bet for the bank - most people's income rises over time and often overspending is a short-term issue. But some people act as if the credit is part of their regular income and keep overspending. Then a shock happens. It doesn't have to be a big shock - a small unexpected expense, a creditor not increasing the credit limit, an interest rate going up a little, and the whole house of cards collapses.
The career of an alcoholic. Usually on can do ten beers every night for quite a while, and then it goes downhill. Same with smoking.
Because the author is clueless of real World data. If you Look into real World data then russia cannot win this war. It is simple at it is.
Your prediction is noted. We'll see who's right once the war is over.
The judgement regarding US Economic Power by Paul "Kathryn" Krugman, seems not to have "provided a decisive advantage to Ukraine", as also a reader of "Ukraine V" pointed out back then. It seems the number of law graduates that can be placed in their own S Classes every year and other such data is not a good measure to predict war outcomes. Works such as "Disintegration: Indicators of the coming American Collapse" by fellow doomer Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press, 2021) apparently provide better indicators here.
PS: "Kathryn" refers to a person from "End Times", a 1%er, whose insights into the economy have very little to do with the realities of the bottom 60%.
I believe that these models do not take into account ideologies, as well as political and economic systems and the determination of the masses that are shaped by these ideologies. I am referring to 1. liberalism (free individuals who sign a contract with the state, free market economy, which means free businesses that are not restricted by the state's economic policy), 2. classical conservatism (a state that is able to impose its will on both businesses and the people with a firm hand, for their own benefit, as it sees it, resulting in a national economic policy and the education of the nation in a unified spirit, which should contribute to its cohesion).
If we bring these elements into view, we will see that Krugman's correct prediction is not realized because free businesses enter into negotiations with the state, demanding purchase guarantees, subsidies, exemptions, etc. On the other hand, in a conservative country, they simply fulfill the task given to them. Of course, if the war lasts for 10 years, the greater economic power of the West will eventually start to show and Russia will not be able to compete with it (as the USSR could not). In a relatively shorter period, however, conservatism has an advantage, and the Russian economy switched to the war effort more quickly and therefore has an advantage at first. The question is whether Russia will have time to defeat Ukraine during this temporary advantage. It is possible. The opposite is also possible: it will not have time, and then the economic superiority of the West will finally come into play.
This is just a single example of how conservatism gives an advantage to the weaker side, albeit for a short period. As a matter of fact, the entire rise of China should be attributed to the rejection of liberalism and the adherence to conservatism.
Returning to the war in Ukraine, we should also note the cohesion of the current Russian nation, which is the result of state propaganda and education in schools. Ukraine, which has embraced liberalism and all the possible freedoms that come with it, has no such cohesion (if there is some cohesion, it is caused by anger at the aggression and a desire for revenge).
From here we can move on to the second approach, which is based on losses. Perhaps this approach should not focus so much on the losses of one side as on the difference in the losses of the two sides and correlate it with the difference in population. But that is not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was that (at least from what we now know), the number of Ukrainian deserters exceeds the Russian figures. According to the statements of some members of the Ukrainian parliament, the number of deserters (400,000) is enormous and probably exceeds the number of those killed. And here again we have to go back to liberalism versus conservatism. Russian soldiers obviously have a disproportionately greater certainty of punishment if they desert. At the same time, in liberal Ukraine, deserters are not punished at all. They are simply urged to return (because “nothing will happen to them”).
In principle, Ukraine tried to follow the Russian path and tighten the screws, but the EU immediately reacted to such deviations from liberalism and Zelenskyy had to demonstrate active liberalism.
Thus, a new angle can show all the data in a different light.
Good analysis.
This war has human faces. I know someone who has gone many times to deliver aid. And a family who now has Ukrainian members. It is not all theoretical and very brave people have stepped up. It has been a tough time.
Your Model is full of errors. You could Not get the basic facts right.
You mesh up data which is Not valid.
@ Geoffrey G: I'll throw a seperate theory & factual data point in support of your position. Retired RAND researcher David Ronfeldt has published work on the rise of "Noopolitik" or Noosphere Politics in the age of global information networks. It is premisied on whose story is winning (literally the title of the supporting book "Whose Story Wins") on spreading across the networks and colonizing human minds. If Turchin's model does not treat information as infectious "winning stories" across connected networks of minds, then his information model is at best incomplete and at worst counter-predictive. Turchin admits his model is wrong, but still useful. How useful is the unknown. The fact I mentioned was that China is playing a big part in shaping younger cohorts minds on issues like the Ukraine war, as is shown in statistical models strongly showing how their algorithmic bias favors their positions on TicTok & Rednote when compared with X, Facebook, & others (from a recent Bulwark podcast).
Can anyone clarify on this point; “as we know, a new technology, drones, has gained importance during this conflict, and is now the prime killer, especially on the Ukrainian side”. The reports I’ve come across indicate a Kia ratio for 2025 that significantly favors Ukraine due to their more effective use of drones and expanded drone production. Is that what Turchin is referring to? Or is the reverse true; Russia has replicated its artillery superiority in drone production and deployment?
So called "reports" on casualties are complete bullshit. No evidence whatsoever. Out of thin air.
More than apparent, from the beginning of Russia's SMO against the contrived strategies of the Washington - London - Brussels Power Elite was that Russia would prevail and rewrite the Laws of Engagement, as did Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.
From June, 2023 - https://les7eb.substack.com/p/washingtons-ukraina-grandioznaya
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