Andrew Bustamante on Lex Fridman – Ukraine a forlorn hope?

I have problems tieing together the depressing nature of his conclusions with his analysis of why the outcome will be so negative. i.e. “Russia is winning. They’re winning in Ukraine… Empircally, when you look at the math!” This might be explained by his attempt to push back against a triumphalist narrative that Ukraine is one last push away from from a general rout of Russian forces in South and West Ukraine. However, while he believes Kherson and Odessa will fall before Winter 2022 – where he discusses a maximalist Russian ambition of strangling the Ukrainian economy by linking Crimea to Transnistria – he also indicates his negative assessment might include a negotiated ceasfire (perhaps with similar borders to how they are today?).

Most of all he looks at Ukraine as a problem of disinterest due to an absence of compelling Western motivations to suffer in their support of Ukraine.

Rejoining the Single Market – How do they think that will play out?

I have been recently entertained by all the fervent discussion on the merits of rejoining the Single Market as an EEA member resulting from Tobias’s advocacy in that direction. Not because it couldn’t be done. Not because it doesn’t have some merit. No, I am entertained because that fervent discussion presumes that it is all so obvious as a solution to the UK’s woes, and implementing it all so smooth we’ll barely even notice the transition. I’m not so sure.

I want to give you a flavour of how the campaign against any such move will play out on the air waves:

Having some cheeky fun with #SeapowerState – and the Army’s evident problem

The events of the last month have lead to me labelling events with a tag of “SeapowerState”, whether that was the pointlessness of Afghanistan, the move from Trade to Foreign Office for Liz Truss, or the defenestration of France’s Indo-PAC strategy by AUKUS. Gently pointing out the power of culture in Foreign Policy; exposing the tyranny of Mahan in how we understand “Sea Power” only as a deracinated military method, and not in its truest sense of a temporary and artificial cultural construct, willingly adopted, via systematic appropriation that then drives public policy.

And this is where the army is coming unstuck.

Social Democracy and what it means for others – Cod101

My thoughts on the view that turbo-charged technological capitalism is churning society faster than we as individuals and groups can cope with. Through the lens of my own bias; that the only way forward is to make society as flexible and adaptable as possible – that the alternative is to be the Native Americans when europeans turned up with guns and industry.

And why I rail against the fetishising of aid whilst applying massive tariffs on manufactured/processed goods.

Twitter threads – Scattered thoughts on 2020

Most of efforts this year have been on twitter – which is to say I have been lazier in refusing to put the time and effort into properly researching, structuring, and presenting an argument in long form. Where I have taken the trouble to attempt such in twitter form – as a thread – they will be recorded for posterity below. This is less a comment on their quality, and more to do with the fact that I periodically blitz my twitter postings.

Thank god we’re nearly done with this year:

3Cdo Brigade – New role new future

Tough times for the Commandos in the last decade. The SDR98 ambition built up 3Cdo into a force that could launch a brigade across a beach and then conduct combined-arms maneuvre warfare ashore. Afghanistan and Iraq fattened-up a lean ‘marine’ force into just another roulement brigade to be cycled through the War on Terror, and SDSR10/15 cut the ‘legs’ away from 3Cdo in shedding the RN and RFA ships that made them ‘amphibious’. The final nail is the proliferation of near-peer aversaries fielding anti-access area denial (A2AD) weapons that push traditional amphibious capabilies so far off-shore they no longer have any strategic effect on-shore. So things weren’t looking good…

But perhaps the tide has turned.

Meaningful votes 1-4 – Where do you stand?

The purpose of Brexit is democratic self governance. Explicitly this requires the ability to diverge in legal and regulatory terms. Implicitly, this suggests a desire to diverge from our present trajectory. In terms of the UK leaving the EU and yet retaining a trading reltionship, this dilemma revolves around the single market; flanking policies, services, and goods. The EEA in short. This dilemma exists because of the maximalist interpretation of ‘no hard border’ and and eu insistence on the absolute ‘integrity of the single market’. In consequence, this frames the offer from the EU as EEA+CU.

So where do you fall on this, looking across the 2019 with the (soon to be) four MV’s?

WA/PD – Shenanigans in search of EEA

Leaving under the Withdrawal Agreement / Political Declaration leaves the Services Industry with a problem: The new relationship resulting from the PD will be based off the template of the WA, and that does not include Services. So any new Services relationship will be starting from scratch, which will reduce access compared to the status-quo, increase uncertainty, and result in investment/jobs being redirected to other regulatory environments to maximise the efficiency of those organisation. Bummer.

But I don’t believe this justifies immediately junking the WA/PD in favour of Norway+:

Yeah, you know that Department for International Trade?

I’ve long had a nagging suspicion that Liam Fox has the unrewarding task of setting up a fiefdom that exists only to scrapped as a bargaining chip in the great brexit unwinding. Customs Unions are dangerous beasts, but they don’t do much damage – sovereignty wise – in and of themselves.

That is if we are to consider Customs Unions as separate from Single Markets.

Brian – And the scientific method

“The electorate has presented the political class with a challenge, which is that we would like to leave the EU but we would like to do it in a way that of course doesn’t impose a border in Ireland, and isn’t particularly economically damaging.”

Some thoughts on the worthy man’s musings: