In Tenure Veritas: Libations From The Ivory Tower

 On Saturday, I was rather harsh on Biden and most of the West for a failure to understand the importance of maximal response.  I like what I'm seeing.  Removal from SWIFT, and basically, going after everything except the energy sector.  Now go after the energy sector.  That is how you crush Russia.  Yup, it'll hurt, but it will destroy Russia.  Do it.  Putin's state cannot be abided.  Economic warfare can work, but only when applied maximally.  No half-measures.

 There is no need for any reasonable person to debate Superman versus Batman.  Superman is stupid, and Batman is rich.  Batman can afford kryptonite.  When the writers make Superman so powerful that he can only be defeated by a thing that he cannot possibly defeat, Bruce Wayne simply needs to buy it, and that's the fight, that's the game.  If Superman were smarter, he could avoid it, but he isn't.  He's a moron, and Bruce Wayne is a genius.  Batman wins.  Now, I'm not saying I have ever engaged in the more reasonable question of Superman versus The Hulk, but yes, Superman is strong, but the madder Hulk get, the stronger  Hulk get.  I'm not saying I have  engaged in this kind of triviality, but I'm not saying I haven't . Once upon a time, as a mere pup, I may also have wasted time ranking guitarists.  So here's a question.  Were I to ask you to name the "greatest guitarist EVAAAR," would your answer change if I added a condition limiting you

 I maintain that the most important book for you to read on war, strategy or bargaining is The Strategy of Conflict , by Thomas Schelling.  Schelling laid out several of the foundational developments in game theory, while explaining the nature of the Cold War, deterrence, and the applicability of those concepts to a wider array of circumstances.  Once you understand the concepts Schelling explained, you understand why Putin wins, why Taiwan is fucked, and why 2022 America guarantees its own failure. A few days ago, I posted a snarky allegory about Vladimir Putin walking into a shop, and "buying" Ukraine with sanctions, but of course, commerce is a different thing.  Capitalism works through the principle of positive sum interaction.  A customer walks into a shop, sees a good for sale, decides that he values the good more than the money, the shopkeeper values the money more than the good, so through the voluntary exchange, both the shopkeeper and the customer are made happier. 

 Jens Johansson, "Don't Mention The War," from Fission .

 I'll address this in more depth with a full post on Saturday, but here is the key question.  What price would you pay to stop Putin?  That's it.  That is the policy question.  Nothing comes for free, and for all my Adam Smith-esque snark from the other day, we aren't in positive-sum territory anymore.  A monster is on the loose.  What would you pay to stop him?  If your willingness to pay tops out below the cost of stopping him, you won't stop him.  Americans don't want to pay.  Putin won't be stopped.  Basic arithmetic.

 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man .  Sorry, Franky.  The fall of the Soviet Union did not mean the final triumph of Western, liberal democracy, and if Trump retakes America, that means Putin takes America.  Yeah, Franky wrote the wrong-est book ever.  Are we gonna do anything about this?  Probably not.  Observations on the nature of deterrence are forthcoming.

 Scene:  A mom-and-pop shop along a quiet, little street in the hipster district of Scranton, Delaware, because nobody knows where Scranton is.  Besides, who the fuck cares?  Pennsylvania, Delaware, whatever.  It's Scranton .  Anyway... ring ! A quaint, little bell rings as the door opens to reveal 4'2" Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin.  He is followed by an obsequious minion holding a measuring tape, claiming his height to be 6 '2".  Yeah, they probably use the metric system in Russia, but it's my story, so a) fuck off, and b) it's all posturing to the West anyway.  Moving on. Putin strolls through the store, nervously eyed by the exploded eye of the shop owner, Joe Biden.  The bell woke him from his nap.  Putin gives him the finger-gun point-and-shoot gesture universal to douchebags everywhere.  Biden cringes in the gesture universal to wusses everywhere.  Putin... walks on down the hall. Gazing at glass case after glass case, something catches the dicta

 I'm-a-gonna grumble.  Iron Council  is the third book in the Bas-Lag series, by China Mieville, and in previous posts, I have lauded the first two books--   Perdido Street Station , and The Scar .  In fact, I was so enamored of Perdido Street Station  that I spent time thinking  about the book before I wrote anything (!), and I wrote two posts, instead of one.  I will still recommend, in the strongest possible terms, that you read both of those books, especially Perdido Street Station .  Do not bother with Iron Council  unless you simply must read the complete series.  I have observations, and perhaps they can be categorized as meta-observations, but I think it is a failure of a book, not merely because it does not live up to the first two in the series, but because the book just sucked.  It sucked for some important reasons, though, so instead of it being one of those books that I read, ignore and forget (and hence don't bother with a post), I have some observations on ideolo

 While the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine is currently taking up more of our political oxygen, and understandably so, it is worth taking a moment to note what happened in San Francisco.  At least in part because it was San Francisco .  Look, I love San Francisco.  As cities go, it's right up there.  Great food, arts, great weather  [as he looks outside at more and more snow].  Sure, I have a particular fondness for Berkeley, which is its own place, separate from the City By The Bay.  Equal?  That would require a few court cases to adjudicate.  Nevertheless, if each has an Amoeba Records...  Anyway, all places have their own kind of crazy.  Where would you rather hang out-- rural Texas, or the Castro District?  Dude, Castro .  I mean, Fidel himself was a psychopath, but the Castro is a way more fun place than some shithole count r y in a state that can damned-well secede, already.  This is one way to think about places.  Whose crazy do you accept?  Whose crazy drives you craz

 Vladimir Putin is probably going to invade Ukraine.  We do not have a treaty with Ukraine.  Ukraine is not a NATO member.  If it were, we would respond with force.  Given that threat, Putin would not invade.  Basic game theory.  This is why treaties matter.  This is why Putin does not  want Ukraine to join NATO, nor to sign any treaties that would protect it.  Yet without any such treaties, there is an upper bound on the punishments we can impose upon Putin, which means that if Putin places enough value on Ukraine, he cannot be deterred from invading it.  Treaties matter.  NATO matters.  It's probably too late for Ukraine, but if any other country is concerned, the lesson is this.  Sign a treaty.  Otherwise, if Putin or anyone else comes for you, we can't help you.

 It'll get used eventually.  Etienne Charles, "Russian Satellite," from Kaiso .

 While question of how Donald Trump handled official documents, including classified documents, amid his post-presidency has taken up much of the political oxygen this week, what has continued to roil the January 6 investigation in a more serious way is the ongoing series of revelations about the extent to which those within Trump's orbit pushed to have voting machines seized as part of some (1/ x )baked plot to cling to power beyond the inauguration date, and overturn the 2020 election.  These plots did not come to fruition.  No voting machines were seized, no national emergency was declared, and these bonkers schemes, while many of us were warning about them in advance of 2020, and continue to warn about them for 2024, did not actually happen.  And so, this morning, we turn to the question of plots to seize power.  The plots that don't  actually happen, and for that, we turn to a novel that I have assigned to my students in the past-- The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln , by S

 With the Canadian trucker protest and continued pushback against any vaccine mandates in the US, I have a simple, or perhaps not so simple observation.  Rejection of a vaccine mandate can come in one of two forms.  There is straight-forward antivaxxer-ism, wherein those who object to the mandates do so because they have an active desire to not take the vaccine.  Perhaps they believe, falsely, that the risks of the vaccine are higher than the risks of COVID.  Perhaps they believe, insanely, that the vaccines have microchips in them, or some such nonsense.  Perhaps they believe, non-falsifiably, that there will be some consequence 20 years down the road, which is unlikely given what we know, is not a standard that they apply elsewhere, the math doesn't add up compared to COVID, and is basically just a rationalization of fears handed to them by other antivaxxers.  Antivaxxerism is not data-based, but it is, at least, a belief. This morning, though, I have an observation about another