Comments by "Tim Trewyn" (@timtrewyn453) on "Lex Fridman" channel.

What does NATO expansion into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland result in? The sovereignty and territorial integrity of those nations. NATO has not invaded Russia from those nations. Kaliningrad could be seen as a great irritation to these nations, but it remains a part of Russia, though surrounded by NATO. Mearsheimer stops with NATO as the cause of the war in Ukraine. But NATO membership does not translate into an invasion of Russia. NATO prevents invasion by Russia. That's what appears to have been unacceptable to Putin. Putin might very well understand that the SMO was not going to take all of Ukraine, but it was certainly designed to consolidate the invasion of Crimea. The war map makes that quite clear. Another part of the mission of the 190,000 was to take Kyiv, displace European influence, and restore Russian influence over the Ukrainian government. Western Ukraine could come later. Another part of the mission was to take Odessa and link to Transnistria. All these missions are supported by the current deployment of Russian forces. It's a deflection to harp on Putin not intending to take all of Ukraine. Mearsheimer is right that there is a ruthless aspect to the American government. Lloyd Austin made it quite clear that the United States was ready to use Ukrainian fighting spirit to weaken Russia and thereby undermine Russia's ability to support a Chinese invasion of Taiwan down the line. And things have so far lined up closer to that trajectory. NATO countries are increasing defense budgets, Finland and Sweden are closer to NATO than ever, American weapons continue to be demonstrated as superior to Russian, and Russia has been reduced in the European oil and gas market to the benefit of American oil companies. Mearsheimer cuts off the causes too early and tilts them onto the West too easily. The war in Ukraine puts the Ukrainians between two large powers seeking to gain superior influence over Ukraine, consistent with Mearsheimer's view of power. I don't get why he tilts this against the West instead of seeing the conflict as a fight over a nation that was standing on its own (vainly) rather than joining one alliance or the other. This is a fight over which empire gains Ukraine as an ally. If one understands the sentiments of most Ukrainian people, one would see they prefer the West to Russia. What Putin should rightly fear is that Ukraine would become the kind of model that West Germany was to Eastern Europe, contributing to the demise of the Soviet Union by setting an example of the benefits of the Western system. Mearsheimer discounts Putin's nuclear arsenal deters an outright NATO military invasion.
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@avimiller2586 Yes. Vlad Vexler describes John Mearsheimer as someone who "looks at the world from 40,000 feet".
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Good point. This is why subsidiarity, leaving the exercise of power to the most local possible group or individual, needs a comeback.
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@bigiron1990 The adjective "passionate" can describe hate or love or a person. That might be what user-mv's unexplained view of the "same coin" rests on. They might say "passion" could be inherent, a matter of temperament. After 37 years of marriage, I will say love can be, among other things, hard work. But that work, that engagement with another can build a very resilient trust and joyful, often humorous, unique camaraderie. Conscience, self-control, and commitment matter. Sometimes wide differences in perspective indicate there is not much conscience in someone. Sometimes that doesn't get spotted until a relationship is far down the road. A few can adjust. Many cannot. I don't think hate lasts very long in those of conscience and experience. It distills into an effort to understand, but with caution, testing another's ability to reciprocate sincerely. The psychopaths are out there.
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I remember some Egyptians protesting, "No more blood for the Palestinians." The Palestinians have had to turn to the Persians. The Persians didn't want the Saudis normalizing relations with Israel. The Saudi's have to mind their stewardship of the Islamic faith while managing a contest with Iran. However difficult it may be, Israel is probably stuck administrating Gaza for some time.
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It is disappointing when a speaker on foreign relations entertains his own mortality as a possible boundary on his policy views.
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The impending normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Hamas can't have that.
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Missed his take on COVID and how he thought he did. The Afghanistan withdrawal can be seen as being used as a distraction from COVID. Over a million Americans died from COVID and there still may be unnecessary deaths from it. Could Trump have done better on that? What unscheduled crisis will he face over the next four years? That's a difference sometimes between running a business and running a government. Almost everybody runs to the government when there is a contingency.
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It's about which empire gets the profitable deals with the small, boutique, ethnic nation.
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Good point. I think Putin is going to punt that issue to the next Russian dictator.
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@sirjaymacthegreat Somehow occupied Guantanamo doesn't compare with Russian occupied Ukraine.
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@SegzWithTedCruz So what are one or two specific differences between Mearsheimer and say, Rex Tillerson or Anthony Blinken or Pompeo? How would he reduce untimely death?
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Technology trade. Israel's precarious position stimulates a lot of innovation they are willing to sell.
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@t.seank.529 This risk is getting mitigated by the construction of new plants in other locations. Yes, it will take time. For the long run, the US, South Korea, and Japan don't care to have the Taiwan Straits turned into a Chinese tollway. It's the near permanent geography and trade routes that drive the interest in maintaining a Taiwan that doesn't charge tolls. The nice, vague term is "freedom of seas."
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I've signed off on monthly payments for nuclear power. It had a wholesale price of about 9 cents per kWh. Add 1 cent for transmission and 4 cents for distribution and administration and you were at 14 cents per kWh. That was in the 90s. It is not cheap. Wind and solar are cheaper now. Hydro, where you can do it, was the cheapest. Coal was at 6 cents per kWh out of the plant. Today its more expensive than gas, solar, or wind generated power. That's as much a reason for utilities not building new coal plants as renewable incentives. New power plants are natural gas fired or renewable. A nuclear plant has a low risk of failure, but a high cost for failure if it happens. See Chernobyl. If you think we need to do more nuclear, then good luck convincing the rate payers their electric bills need to go up 15 to 25%. What the US should do is keep rebuilding its existing nuclear generating sites if they can be updated safely. Burning oil to generate power is up over 15 cents per kWH. Utilities avoid oil as much as possible as a fuel source. What utilities do want to do is operate their coal plants for their designed life in order to pay off their construction debt and fulfill long-term coal contracts. My understanding of the US warning of a Russian invasion is that that call was based on analysis of the scope and equipment involved in the exercises close to the border. If a possible invasion is not on your checklist, there is no reason to conduct exercises of the scale conducted so close to an international boundary. You conduct them on more interior bases. Russia is certainly sensitive to NATO force levels near its western border. They should not be surprised by comparable concerns. I think Stone's proposal that somehow the US tricked the Russian Army into invading Ukraine is wrong. There is a school of geopolitics in Russia that finds the assimilation of Ukraine a vital Russian strategic interest, no matter how 40 million Ukrainians might feel otherwise. The sense of importance of that interest explains Russian persistence in the conflict. If Russia just wanted to end conflict in Donbas, they would have focused on it in the first place. Stone goes on to back up the idea that Putin is essentially negligent in due diligence with his own government. Maybe not such a smart guy. And it does not surprise me much that Ukrainians would use the kind of state mechanisms of population control that the Russians use. They were in the same Soviet Union. Hey, I know Ukrainians that prefer being in the US to pre-war Ukraine. Stone was right on when mentioning the contrast between the American and Russian defense budget. We do not get a good ROI on American defense. Interviewer asked very good questions.
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True or false, there have been up to 9 million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia? I am not saying Palestinians do not have a case for a secure homeland. In 2020 dollars, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for about $120 million with an "m". Since 1948, the United States has provided Egypt and Israel with over $130 billion with a "b" in aid. It follows that continued US aid, or some portion of it, could be predicated on the purchase of land in both Egypt and Israel for a Palestinian State. Not that this would change Hamas policy toward Israel in any way.
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In part, Putin based, and continues to base, his sense of inevitable victory over Ukraine on Russia having 3.5 times Ukraine's population. If that is such a valid metric for him, he must be deeply concerned about the threat of a rising China. In spite of his awkward use of history, he probably knows that the Russian empire has in the past taken land and people from the Chinese empire. While I don't think his concern is fear, I think his desire for victory forces him to constantly calculate. The Russian perception of the Chinese threat is severe enough, that he must divert that concern to NATO. A calculation has been made that there can be no negative portrayal of China, a calculation China would like all other nations to abide by as well. To face and balance this new power, Putin needs to acquire more power for Russia. It is easier for him to go westward, ergo Ukraine, Belarus more easily being brought back under Russian supervision. It wasn't just the West that humiliated China in the 19th Century. Russia was a part of that humiliation. Putin's resorts to history expose him to these facts. Open hostilities occurred between the two empires as recently as 1969. Yet hyperbolic terms are used to describe the "friendship" between the two nations.
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Who are the Uighurs?
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Leadership systems which involve killing domestic rivals have to be mindful of vengeance against them. This puts instability at the foundation of a psychopathic dictatorship. These dictatorships are not about optimizing the welfare of the people. They are about maximizing the power and wealth of the leadership. This necessitates the dissolution of any civic association that might organize effective opposition, even peaceful political opposition, or just mutual emotional support. This does not create a productive society. I see no geographic or resource reason why Russia should not have a population on the order of 400 to 500 million people. Yet it hovers now at about 145 million, a million having recently left and tens of thousands dying in battle. The "necessary protective action" had nothing to do with the welfare of the Russian people and everything to do with the power and pleasure of the Russian leadership. They had no other plan for their life other than staying in power until they died.
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Yes. But some American employers like the illegal part. It gives them more leverage. But not directly. They hire a legal subcontractor that is bi-lingual, and the subcontractor hires the illegals.
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In the next world, there is time to get to know everybody, and we do projects together. Some of those projects involve overcoming things in ourselves. There is always another project when you are alive. Religion must be engaged with caution, for some use it to enhance their own life at the expense of others. The clever man has observed religion can bring about the more optimally productive society in which he can be both parasite and leader of, a man of power and the richest leisure.
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First generation migrants are going to retain their language and culture. The second generation goes to school and gets acclimated to the culture of that school. It becomes bi-lingual and somewhat diplomatic. The third generation only hears some stories about the old country. They again are cultured by their school. A few get back to the old country for a short visit, but it's not home. I'm fifth generation. America is home. Military veteran. Visited the old country, but it is not home.
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Yes. Russia thinks in terms of being bigger than Ukraine and they will prevail because they can wear down Ukraine. This gives the West, which is bigger than Russia, an opportunity to wear down Russia while Russia fetishizes on Ukraine. Russian leadership is stuck. It's a Soviet trajectory all over again. Good for the West. Very hard for Ukraine.
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After reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Red, Green and Blue Mars trilogy, getting people to Mars is a lot easier than keeping them alive there. I would not want to go unless a lot of redundant systems were already put in place by unmanned missions. I am not sure those systems are anywhere near ready to start being sent there. So any manned mission to Mars in my mind involves returning the entire crew to Earth after they complete a reasonable amount of exploration and development work for the next, hopefully longer and more hospitable mission. Having casualties should probably be assumed. It is interesting how Musk's companies have synergies with respect to supporting a colony on Mars. Will he ever send a product of The Boring Company to Mars to provide for the vital need of habitable spaces for living, working, and storage underground? Unlike Earth's surface, Mars' surface is subject to substantial radiation. Note that Robinson's trilogy made the point that Mars is not beyond the reach of Earth's weapons systems. It may be a better to create survivable and sustainable small communities on Earth that can re-establish civilization after a calamity. Such an effort can essentially have all the positive side effects of an effort to have a city on Mars.
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It leads one to ponder if Mearsheimer has a deeper guiding principle.
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About all the world can do about North Korea is help a few people get out. And the other thing would be to have three anti-ballistic missiles ready for every nuclear ballistic missile NK is thought to have. I disagree that we simply benefit from the system our ancestors set up. American institutions of coercion, and we have them, are more (and they themselves might not appreciate the word) liberal and accountable to the people. Part of it is members of the institutions of coercion understanding that they generally are better off themselves if they do not overdo their job. Another part is that the American system does to an extent value and reward integrity and professionalism, and many people in the institutions of coercion respond honorably to that opportunity, and often intrinsically just do so because of the very decent person they are. These people have a great deal to do with why America is usually a very decent place to be. Not always, obviously.
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Could it be duping delight?
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Why? 4 to 7 percent of the human population has no conscience. They like victory after victory. They are in every culture. If a culture does not manage them well, things go badly.
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If the US and NATO can do that, I would think Russia, China, India, and Brazil could be doing the same business. It's easy to beat the US on price.
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China rose economically because Western companies wanted its cheap labor. While China has a domestic economy, its growth is very much tied to nations willing to engage in trade with it. Aggressive behavior can lead to a loss of trade and therefore less economic growth. The world wants the Taiwan Strait free for shipping. That doesn't change much down the road. China would naturally want to turn it into a tollway in exchange for safe passage. The Taiwan semi-conductor manufacturing risk issue will eventually be diversified by the completion of facilities located elsewhere. The Taiwan Strait issue remains. What might be the case for China is that the population is just too big for a Chinese version of the Russian Siloviki to maintain control over. But Xi's conversion to that kind of system seems to be coming to pass. The consequence is the stagnation that such oppressive systems bring about.
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@summersnow7296 I agree the world is nuanced. There are spectrums of behavior such as high empathy to low empathy, high education to low education, etc. What dimensions do you think of?
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I thought both numbers were about the same. Something about the UN accounting for around 10,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine. Numbers out of Gaza rely on the Gazans, but that one is around 12,000 now? Is that way higher?
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Trump visited Russia. Trump projects received Russian financing. Don't dismiss Russian influence out of hand.
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What are the metrics of rationality? Billionaires? The US leads the world in billionaires. Russia comes in 5th. You can look it up. Are billionaires rational? Pushing people together does not always result in a better relationship. It might open old wounds. Are adverbs like "deeply", "entirely", and "certainly" rational without supporting premises? SECDEF Lloyd Austin hinted that some American interests outside of the American government had made it very clear that US policy regarding Ukraine must absolutely avoid nuclear war. He was acting like a guy who had just met with the genuine powers that be. You know, the billionaires whose personal security teams are full of the best ex-special forces people. Putin and his people brandish their nuclear weapons. Is that rational behavior in your book?
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Switzerland enjoys special geographical advantages in its mountains and tunnels.
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@lancehilt7536 My view is affected by Tim Marshall's book "Prisoners of Geography". The thesis is geography does matter, and the book explores the premises that support that thesis. That is not to discount that a nation that chooses to develop its diplomatic skills and practice to a high art can benefit from that investment. Qatar might be a new example.
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@lancehilt7536 I grant your point regarding Switzerland.
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Superb set of questions, Lex. Trump's genius is that he keeps his package simple, if often erroneous. He's assessed the American population, and he believes he can persuade enough of them to vote for him. He will barely win or lose the electoral college in 2024. He is not Ronald Reagan in 1984 (won with 525 electoral votes).
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Ethnocentrism is real and potent, but there is also acquaintance with others, and a history of generally successful interaction can temper initial apprehension with the stranger. Somehow I got to age 66 in a mixed society.
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I have a crazy idea. Have the Taiwanese and Cubans swap islands.
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Who had a perfect childhood? Do we each have some degree of attaching to freedom rather than people because of our history with people? I admire how Lex gives people room, yet loops back to see if they are ready to go a bit deeper on the second or third approach to the boundary of what they will say.
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@joshjonson2368 I raise the question more with a view as to how we might heal from the difficult parts of our childhood.
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