No, Russia is Not Losing the War in Ukraine: A Reply to Paul Schwennesen
2024-09-25
On September 5th, Reason Magazine published a very strange assessment of the war in Ukraine, written by Paul Schwennesen, titled “The War in Ukraine Is Already Over—Russia Just Doesn’t Know it Yet.” In short, Schwennesen argues that, based on his experience recently traveling to the front in Kursk Oblast, Ukrainian will and high morale mean that the war is as good as over and that Ukrainian triumph is “inevitable.”Schwennesen’s analysis that Russia has as good as lost the war and that its conclusion might very well lead to a collapse of the Russian Federation rests on the premise that the material factors of war do not matter, and that, “A war’s end, after all, is a matter of will, of spirit” and, “Wars are won in the heart of a people, not through the rational calculations of military
Canada’s “Worst Decline in 40 Years”
2024-07-26
Canada’s standard of living is on track for its worst decline in 40 years, according to a new study by Canada’s Fraser Institute.The study compared the three worst periods of decline in Canada in the last 40 years — the 1989 recession, the 2008 global financial crisis, and this post-pandemic era.They found that unlike the previous recessions, Canada is not recovering this time. Something broke.In fact, according to the Financial Post, since 2019, Canada’s had the worst growth out of 50 developed economies. Inflation-adjusted Canadian wages have been flat since 2016.So, yes, something broke.And it’s nowhere near over: Canada’s per-person real GDP is still falling, and with a looming US recession — the US is 75% of Canada’s exports — Canada could crash again before it ever