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Arnold Kling's avatar

Based on your narrative, this seems like what I call "corporate soap opera." When you are in an organization, you get into personality conflicts. But of course, you can't admit "I'm in a personality conflict." You claim that there is a disagreement that is so fundamental that the very mission of the organization is in jeopardy if the other side prevails. I would have advised your friend to try to hold a more detached attitude in this situation. And I would have advised him to under no circumstances take his conflict public.

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HenryOrlando's avatar

The usual super job at finding something I would never have considered by Bob. I also wonder about Mother Jones not picking up on Bob's considerations from a journalistic perspective. Seems like they should have is my thinking. On this part of what Bob wrote: "Those unwise US policies didn’t violate international law, whereas Russia’s invasion did. So Russia is the criminal, and it’s important to punish criminal behavior (though I share the view of some people at Quincy that pushing Russia entirely out of Ukraine probably can’t be done without courting an unacceptable risk of regional or even nuclear war)." I have been thinking that, while not likely to occur in reality, getting Russia to back to the pre-invasion boundaries CAN be done if there was enough political will and military support should the Ukraine government want to do so. I think the stakes for the long term (containing Russian aggression and what not doing so would say to other troublesome nuclear powers or want to be nuclear powers in the world) warrant the increased risk of a regional war or even a nuclear exchange since I expect that nuclear exchange would be first use of a small tactical weapon by Russian with an overwhelming negative response from the world and probably a response in kind from NATO/USA. My hope at that point is that Russia would not be so foolish as to make an all out first strike on NATO or the USA but it certainly would be possible. If that occurred then that would be it of course. Easy to say by someone in their 70s and maybe not so if I was a young adult or had children and grandchildren. Now all that to say, what is the argument against this point of view? Seems to me this is at least an arguable position. I am ready to read the killer argument that refutes this thinking since I can see it is quite risky. End rant.

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