geopolitics – Tracy Durnell

How the war in Ukraine reduces the risk of nuclear war

Liked Nuclear war! by Timothy Snyder (Thinking about…)

Why it isn’t happening

Our nuclear talk is a way to claim victimhood, and then to blame the actual victims. Once we turn our attention to a hypothetical exchange of missiles, we get to imagine that we are the victims. Suddenly the actual war no longer seems to matter, since our lives (we imagine) are at risk. And the Ukrainians seem to be at fault. If only they would stop fighting, then we could all be safe. This, of course, is exactly how Russian propagandists want us to reason. And it is wrong.

[…]

It is an example of a narcissistic fantasy that looms over discussions of American foreign policy: the fantasy of omnipotent submission. This is the notion, birthed in American exceptionalism and impatience, that since America is the power behind everything, all will be well if America does nothing. If we do what the Russian propagandists want, and do nothing for Ukraine, then (in this fantasy) there will be no nuclear war.

What makes a country good?

Bookmarked What makes a country good? by Amelia Wattenberger (wattenberger.com)

Every country in the world is regularly tracked by a large number of metrics. Some are mundane measures (e.g., population, physical size) and others are meant to reflect quality (e.g., control of corruption, political rights score). This creates a large list of variables that could make a country “good” or “bad”, with no simple way to combine them.

Because there are no universally accepted measures of “good”, we approached this question agnostically, allowing the individual user to interrogate countries based on metrics or reference countries of their choosing.

Cuz we don’t got it. We’re about at “bearable if you’re moderately rich, white, cis and straight.”