Why We Haven’t Tried To End The War

In a recent post (“Elon Musk Tries To Prevent World WarIII“), I mentioned that there were three reasons why Western leaders were eager to escalate with Russia, rather than attempt to use diplomacy to end the war:

1. A simplistic, moralized view of the war (Goliath Russia invades plucky, democratic David Ukraine).
2. Perceptions of Russian weakness.
3. Putin as an ideological opponent.

Maybe the most important of these reasons has been the first one. Even the few voices calling for restraint in our proxy war with Russia, such as the venture capitalist David Sacks, often seem compelled to condemn Russia’s invasion in the harshest terms. For example, in his cautionary essay last month, Sacks described it as “immoral, criminal, and barbaric”.

Mike Whitney pushed back against that moralized view…