Mainstream narratives for the first year or two of the war were:
- Russia was a paper tiger and weak
- Ukraine was going to win against a corrupt/unmotivated Russian military so it should keep fighting
- Putin had made an error and he would get overthrown
- The Russian economy was going to collapse due to sanctions
- Russia oil pipelines would freeze and never come back online without western help (this was a Peter Zeihan favorite)
- Europe would come to Ukraine's defense
- Etc.
He threw cold water on every single one of those narratives (specifically) from the beginning, meanwhile western media was busy spinning false rah-rah propaganda narratives like "the ghost of Kiev" etc.
Basically he was correct that we should not have cheered on this war. If a settlement and concessions were reached much earlier it would have been better for Ukraine (they likely would have kept more territory) and we wouldn't have 1+ million casualties and EU economies like Germany death spiraling and turning far right due to cutting themselves off from Russian energy.
alt Hacker News
Mainstream narratives for the first year or two of the war were:
- Russia was a paper tiger and weak
- Ukraine was going to win against a corrupt/unmotivated Russian military so it should keep fighting
- Putin had made an error and he would get overthrown
- The Russian economy was going to collapse due to sanctions
- Russia oil pipelines would freeze and never come back online without western help (this was a Peter Zeihan favorite)
- Europe would come to Ukraine's defense
- Etc.
He threw cold water on every single one of those narratives (specifically) from the beginning, meanwhile western media was busy spinning false rah-rah propaganda narratives like "the ghost of Kiev" etc.
Basically he was correct that we should not have cheered on this war. If a settlement and concessions were reached much earlier it would have been better for Ukraine (they likely would have kept more territory) and we wouldn't have 1+ million casualties and EU economies like Germany death spiraling and turning far right due to cutting themselves off from Russian energy.