Politics, foreign policy, UK & China.
DavidZhang
Karma: 370
I don’t completely disagree with your prediction about the outcome, but it seems highly likely to me that the compromise will be worse for Ukraine (and the West/world) than the concessions I outlined. Eg puppet government in Kyiv, death of Ukrainian democracy. I think Plus, this way thousands of people died from warfare and we carry the risk of nuclear war.
That’s fair, it’s not appeasement, but neither is it what people wanted of Chamberlain in WW2.
In response to your two points:
Agreed—I wasn’t expecting Ukraine’s military to hold out so well. In the longer run I suspect Putin still has the upper hand, but this isn’t what he wanted. That said I still think the most likely outcome for Ukraine is still very bad, and note that my option would have (hopefully) avoided the loss/suffering/economic collapse that has already happened. Lastly, I could be ex ante right even if this week’s events change our ex post calculations.
I wouldn’t say overwhelming, but I have been impressed with European unity and surprised by Sweden, Switzerland and Germany reversing longstanding policies. I agree that this will make future action for Russia technically harder, though it also backs Putin into a corner which is a bit of a dangerous place for him to be.
I also agree that ‘realist’ perspectives often risk losing track with reality—realism as an approach/philosophy in IR is often based more on pessimism about human behaviour than about how things turn out. But it’s too early to judge.
I’m talking to a range of people. Not everyone agrees. But there are a good number of ‘realists’ including in the EA community who are focused on reducing the chances of nuclear war, and believe that these would have been lower if Russia had been offered some concessions last week, but all of us recognise why this was politically unattainable.
Thanks Andrew—I’m glad you agree. I also agree that consequentialism encourages a high level of realism. That said, I was expecting a higher level of agreement from the EA community on this post, so it’s interesting that not everyone shares my view.
I think the difference with GB/Germany is that the West is unwilling to provide meaningful military support for Ukraine, in the form of troops on the ground. From Ukraine’s perspective I think this is the worst of both worlds, because the West won’t actually stand up the bully, but also isn’t willing to engage with it. This has resulted in war.
This is what I meant by Ukraine being in an unusual position: it is sufficiently West-aligned that it won’t give into Putin’s demands, and he wants to cause trouble, but its lack of Nato membership means that US, UK etc won’t actually provide the support it needs against Russia.
Or to put it another way, I think the current outcome is a form of appeasement because we aren’t actually willing to fight.
Yes, I agree that those options aren’t super practical (if they were, they probably would have happened last week), but my main point is that they would be preferable to the current situation. I also don’t want to reward Putin, obviously. However he’s currently on course to take the whole country. Surely this is worse for the West/Ukraine, and better for him?
On the last two bullet points: the first is informed by talking to analysts and parliamentary researchers in the UK. I think most people would agree there is political pressure (both domestic and international) not to be seen to concede to Putin. The question is how much of a factor this is and whether it leads to worse.
I think this broadly applies to the second bullet point too. It seems fairly clear to me that Ukraine’s leadership was not in a position to concede to Putin’s demands. To use a slightly facetious example, if China threatened nuclear war on the US in exchange for taking Hawaii, any US President would find it hard to agree to the demands, even if it could be better for the world in an EV/x-risk sense.
Hmm, I think I disagree. It’s different to the ‘fat man’ case because in that case the fat man would otherwise survive if you didn’t push him. In this case, the regions will be taken anyway. So the trade-off seems more similar to the classic trolley problem where you are diverting the trolley to save the five.
I agree, however, that Ukraine should be involved with the decision process. My worry is that Nato allies and Ukraine were too quick to close down those channels last week, and that concessions would have been preferable to the current situation (including for Ukrainians).
I agree that Putin would probably have an extended list of demands, many of which would not be worth meeting. The question is whether there was a compromise last week that would have been better than the war we are now seeing.
I’m not sure I understand your first bullet point—obviously I’d love to see Ukraine join the EU. But now they won’t anyway. What’s the pathway from this war to EU membership?
I agree in an ideal world Ukraine would decide on concessions, but they have now had these regions taken by force. Is this really a better outcome for Ukranians?
I have added something—let me know if you think more is needed!
Thanks both—this is really interesting and not what I expected. I think in the UK context there is policy-adjacent research being funded for CSER, CLTR and FHI, and a bit for CE, which I count as all in the EA org bucket, whereas I don’t know of any EA funding going to non-EA policy think tanks. I had also put CSET more in the EA category, but it’s great to hear that things are different in DC and there’s a real interest in funding policy think tanks!
I think reaching out with a proposal (as Founders Pledge did with Carnegie) is probably the best bet, but it would also be worth ensuring think tanks are aware of the existence of the EA funds and that they can just apply for them. E.g. I don’t think my think tank knows about them.
Yes, I agree, I don’t think this is a big problem at the best think tanks, though there are plenty of (generally very ideologically motivated) half-rate think tanks in London and DC.
Oh cool—thanks, I wasn’t aware! I think it is potentially quite rare in the UK, which is my context. London has a lot of big think tanks and I don’t know of any that have received EA funding. I agree that ‘rare’ is an unhelpful (and evidently inaccurate) word, though even in the US, as a proportion of EA policy research funding, am I right that the vast majority would still go to EA orgs?
We should consider funding well-known think tanks to do EA policy research
It is understandable that we want to prioritise those who are closer to us. It’s natural, instinctive, and often helps society to function—like when parents prioritise their kids. But it can also create harmful barriers and division.
History is full of examples of humans devaluing those who seem different or distant to them: just think about how different religions have treated each other, 19th Century slavery, or even the way people prefer to give to local charities over global development.
We should be really cautious when discounting the value of other people. Time is different to space or race, but is it that different? In the past, people thought it was natural and obvious to draw moral distinctions between people on the basis of geography, religion, race or gender. There’s a risk that we might be making the same mistake when it comes to time. After all, future humans are still humans who will live, feel, cry and laugh just like we do. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we allowed this moral empathy to cross the great divide of time as well?
Imagine people in the future could look back and see how we, today, had consciously made decisions to improve their lives. It might feel like walking into a grand cathedral and knowing that the people who built it a thousand years ago knew that it would still be used for millennia. Or it might feel like what Isaac Newton called “standing on the shoulders of giants”—like when Covid vaccine developers used findings from biology and chemistry first discovered by Victorians. Our shared story on this planet would be so much richer and more beautiful if we acknowledged that just as it doesn’t matter where you were born, it shouldn’t matter when you are born.
This is incredibly helpful. For those interested in a UK context, I’ve put together some shorter and less well evidenced pieces on similar themes:
Working in Parliament: How to get a job & have an impact
Becoming a Member of Parliament: potential routes & impact
Writing about my job: NGO Advocacy (UK context)
In general I think the core recommendations carry across to a UK/European context. A few of exceptions that come to mind:
I don’t think law degrees are as helpful in the UK, there was a time when many or even most MPs had them, but now they are much rarer, and in a civil service context are no better than any other degree.
Same for PhDs—I don’t think these add much unless you are in a very technical role.
There is generally less money in the UK policy world. Our think tanks are not as well funded, our parties rely less on big funders, and Parliamentary staff get paid a lot less than their counterparts in Congress. On the one hand this might mean you are more reliant on other funding, or take a bigger hit if you move away from other industries to work in politics. On the other hand, if you/other EAs do have money, my instinct is that there are a lot of low hanging funding opportunities in UK policy. E.g. funding an EA grad to work in Parliament for a year probably only costs about £30k ($40k).
The UK has fewer political appointments in the executive branch but instead a big and entirely politically neutral civil service, with its own recruitment system. This seems well suited to politically-neutral people, but it also means that within political parties there are fewer policy experts.
Goes without saying, but the UK (and other European countries) are less important than the US, both in terms of the reach of domestic policy and the influence of international policy, which means the gains are much smaller. On the plus side, there is less money and competition, and the UK probably ‘punches above its weight’ in lots of policy areas.
Writing about my job: NGO Advocacy (UK context)
Thanks Aidan, super helpful. I too have cooperative instincts but am very sceptical of China and the US ever being friendly without some sort of significant political change in China, though I believe this doesn’t necessarily require the downfall of the CCP, but could at least initially take the form of a more moderate / Western-sympathetic leader. It’s unclear how that will happen any time soon though.
On France, my understanding is that its exclusion is primarily down to (a) a strong preference for nuclear propulsion technology, which is held by the US and UK, and has not been shared with anyone else until now with Australia. It’s unclear what France would add in terms of military technology; (b) the Five Eyes agreement, which means there is already information sharing between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Involving France in the information-sharing aspect of AUKUS would mean changing Five Eyes, which could be a long process and other Five Eyes members might not be up for it.
Not sure how much weight to give this, but I also sense that the UK, US and France are all particularly bad at foreign policy at the moment, in their individual respective ways. The UK has been pissing off European partners ever since the Brexit vote, and keeps getting into stupid arguments with France over things like fishing and refugee policy. The US withdrew from Afghanistan chaotically and without communicating with European allies, and it still has the hangovers from Trumpism which you mention. Meanwhile France seems to be annoying all its former colonies with failed diplomatic spats—e.g. Algeria, Lebanon—while also failing to inspire the military cooperation it wants within the EU.
This is a good analysis! Just to extend / build on your argument, the key thing I’m interested in is the probability and extent of any armed conflict. There is a lot of game theory involved with this, but crudely speaking conflict can arise when one side sees an advantage in attacking first. This could be because they hold a stronger-but-not-dominant position or a weaker-but-not-crushed position, as it is in these positions that the payoffs to conflict are highest. So perhaps the idea behind your first bullet point from the Economist is that a balanced power dynamic reduces either side’s credence that conflict will help their position? And the follow up points about China’s economic influence tilt the balance in China’s favour, thereby raising again the chances of conflict?
I’ve often heard the phrase “numbers matter” but not sure if I prefer it. The concept reminds me of (the inverse of) the quote attributed to Stalin that “the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic.” In the EA for Christians community we have sometimes used the phrase “love thy statistic” as a slogan to counter this.