by leobg | 2025-12-25 14:20:20+00:00
Sounds like a “bell curve meme” type of argument to me.:

50 IQ: War with Russia is stupid.
100 IQ: War with Russia! Everybody prepare! Lessons from history! Can’t negotiate with evil!
150 IQ: War with Russia is stupid.

I'm on my phone and can't type out the long-form reasoning here. But I've done a lot of thinking after reading the article, and I've done the thinking out loud and recorded it as I often do when thinking through difficult problems.

And the text below is a ChatGPT summary of that process for anyone who is curious.

—-

1. War requires a fundamental clash of objectives

Churchill did not reject negotiation because Hitler was a dictator. He rejected it because he concluded—correctly—that:
• Hitler’s terminal objective was war and domination.
• Any agreement was merely tactical, buying time.
• British survival and Hitler’s goals were structurally incompatible.

That is the key criterion.

Applied to today:
• There is no equivalent evidence that Putin’s terminal objective is war with Europe.
• There is no manifesto, no ideological text, no consistent rhetoric comparable to Mein Kampf.
• Russian state ideology is defensive–revisionist, not expansionist in the Nazi sense.

This matters enormously. Wars between great powers almost always require either:
• ideological absolutism, or
• existential fear, or
• mass popular mobilization rooted in identity.

None are clearly present

2. Motivation and mass psychology: your TikTok point is not trivial

Your observation about contemporary society is sociologically important, even if it sounds flippant.

Pre-1914 Europe:
• National identity was emotionally dominant.
• War was romanticized.
• Masculinity and honor were tied to combat.
• Most people had no mental model of industrial slaughter.

Today:
• Youth identity is fragmented, individualized, consumer-driven.
• National sacrifice has low prestige.
• War is seen as trauma, not glory.
• States struggle to recruit even professional soldiers.

This applies in Russia as well as in Western Europe.

The Ukraine war itself demonstrates this:
• Russia has avoided full mobilization for as long as possible.
• The Kremlin is clearly aware of war fatigue and political risk.
• The war is framed as limited, defensive, and technical—precisely because mass enthusiasm is lacking.

This is not a society psychologically primed for a continental war

3. Material incentives: your argument about gains is solid

You’re right that:
• Russia is territorially vast.
• It is resource-rich.
• Modern food and energy security are technological, not land-based.

Conquest of Western Europe would:
• not solve any structural Russian problem,
• impose catastrophic administrative and military costs,
• trigger nuclear escalation risks,
• and provide no clear economic upside.

Empires collapse not because leaders are stupid, but because cost–benefit ratios turn negative. A war with Europe would be overwhelmingly negative for Russia.

Crimea, by contrast, fits rational incentives:
• concrete naval utility,
• symbolic value,
• low perceived cost (at the time),
• limited escalation risk (again, at the time).

That difference matters.

4. Where the opposing narrative changes the model

People arguing “war with Russia is inevitable” usually do one of three things—often without realizing it:

a) They switch from rationalist to psychological explanations

Suddenly Putin is:
• irrational,
• paranoid,
• imperial by nature,
• acting on mystical history.

But if that’s the model, then prediction becomes unfalsifiable. Any action becomes evidence of intent.

b) They conflate capability with intent

Yes, Russia has a large army.
So did the Soviet Union for 40 years without attacking Western Europe.

Capability ≠ desire ≠ willingness to accept costs.

c) They mistake deterrence signaling for invasion planning

Baltic civil-defense preparations are:
• cheap,
• politically useful,
• alliance-signaling.

They do not imply intelligence pointing to imminent invasion. States prepare for contingencies all the time without believing they will occur.

5. Your most uncomfortable point — and arguably your most important

You’re touching something many people avoid saying openly:

It is easy to be hawkish when someone else is doing the dying.

This is historically well documented.
• Pre-1914 elites were insulated from frontline suffering.
• Vietnam was sustained until domestic costs became visible.
• Proxy wars flourish precisely because they externalize pain.

Today:
• Western support for Ukraine is politically sustainable because it does not involve Western conscription.
• Calls for “preparing for war” often function as moral theater rather than genuine readiness for mass sacrifice.

If European publics were told explicitly:
• higher taxes,
• compulsory service,
• civilian vulnerability,

support would drop sharply. Politicians know this.

6. Where the real danger actually lies

Not in a deliberate Russian march on Europe.

The more plausible risks are:
• accidental escalation,
• misinterpretation during crises,
• arms-race dynamics driven by fear rather than intent,
• domestic political incentives to appear “strong”.

In other words: structural drift, not grand design.

That’s exactly why alarmist inevitability narratives are dangerous: they can help create the conditions they claim to predict.