Paul Craig Roberts wrote an article in which he expresses a viewpoint that the Russian gradual and slow approach to the Ukraine war will only encourage American war hawks, giving them the false impression that Russia is weaker than it is, and that attacking them in a nuclear war might actually be a good idea. He thinks it would’ve been better if Russia ran over Ukraine with overwhelming force and simply killed everybody. That would supposedly give Americans pause.

Dmitry Orlov responded on the Saker blog with an emotional article that accuses Roberts of advocating for genocide of Ukrainians, accuses Roberts of pontificating to Russia, and argues that Russian approach will flood the Europe with Western Ukrainian refugees which is good because it will harm Europe, free Ukraine of people who hate Russia, and so on.

I think both sides are under a misapprehension of some kind; Roberts thinks that the nuclear war is preventable. I don’t think it is, because the clique in America that holds literally ALL the power sees such a war as a necessary part of re-arranging the world so that America can have its collapse and emerge as the dominant force decades later. Whatever Russia does or doesn’t do, the outcome will be the same, because it isn’t about how weak they think you are, it’s about what they actually want to do. What they want to do is degrade all possible competition to a position worse than their own for at least the duration of their collapse and presumed recovery.

Orlov, on the other hand, is working under a misapprehension that the amount of killing that would in present circumstances be called genocide matters in the large scale of things. I don’t think it does; even the most strong-armed approach by Russia would probably only increase the speed of killing, not change the ultimate outcome, if Mariupol is any indication, and I believe it is. Basically, with more troops and bombs you end up with the same level of destruction in the timeframe of days instead of weeks, which might actually reduce the time civilians spend in basements starving or risking their lives looking for food and water. Also, he is thinking emotionally and not strategically, and that’s good if you’re taking care of individual people, but it’s not good if you’re trying to come up with some kind of a stable and livable scenario. For instance, let’s say Russia spares the West Ukraine. There’s no bombing, no civilians killed there. It leaves them in a better position to attack Russia later, and they have no personal experience that would advise them against this course. This results in postponed bloodshed, where Russia still has to run them over, but likely more people die, and, more importantly, more Russians die, because I don’t really care that much about the Banderites, considering how they are likely the worst people in the world.

So, the real question isn’t genocide or not. There’s going to be genocide regardless. The Ukrops are going to kill all Russian speaking Ukrainians after this. Unless they are killed, they will make a hell on Earth. Deaths and suffering are inevitable, it’s just a matter of who dies, in what way and order, and how quickly. Also, having in mind that the nuclear war is inevitable, leaving a country full of vile indoctrinated Russia-haters at your doorstep, leaving it intact and with no worry other than how to harm you more when you’re down, is a very bad idea. I agree with Roberts that Ukraine would be best completely wiped out; it would be perfectly unwise to leave them sufficiently intact and able to form a threat in the quite probable near future. However, the fact is that both Russian people and their political leadership are incredibly unwilling to have a nuclear war with the West, and their “weak” approach reflects this unwillingness. It is also the fact that the Americans see this as encouragement and proof of their supremacy, which is a grave mistake, because Russia is actually stronger militarily. However, I wargamed a very large pool of options and the only situation where there isn’t a nuclear war is if something disrupts everything out of the blue, to the point where it makes American plans obsolete – a supervolcanic eruption in America, a huge asteroid strike, a gigantic solar flare that wipes out the technosphere and so on. In any normal scenario, it doesn’t really matter what Russia or China do, because they are not the ones trying to have a nuclear war; they are playing with black figures, so to speak, and America doesn’t really have a de-escalation mode in their political scene.