Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[The Brain]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

No, it was clear the Soviets were not doing well.

Therefore there were no people talking the way Tamas described?

[Tamas]

Ukraine invading Belgorod now too it seems.

Apparently the Russian state TV has announced the evacuation of 11 thousand people from Belgorod county.

[crazy canuck]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

No, it was clear the Soviets were not doing well.

Therefore there were no people talking the way Tamas described?

If there were I was not aware of it.  The discussion was very much the other way - look at how Communism is failing.

The analogy doesn't work.  Putin is not trying to export his Kleptocracy as a way other states should govern themselves.

The question is how long Russia can maintain its war against Ukraine and the answer seems to be quite a long time.  At least five years. That tells the west and particularly the United States. They need to be in this for the long haul.

[The Brain]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

No, it was clear the Soviets were not doing well.

Therefore there were no people talking the way Tamas described?

If there were I was not aware of it.

Fair enough. I was.

[crazy canuck]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

No, it was clear the Soviets were not doing well.

Therefore there were no people talking the way Tamas described?

If there were I was not aware of it.

Fair enough. I was.

How old were you in 1985?

[The Brain]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

No, it was clear the Soviets were not doing well.

Therefore there were no people talking the way Tamas described?

If there were I was not aware of it.

Fair enough. I was.

How old were you in 1985?

Old enough.

[DGuller]

I wonder if the example of the Russian economy is another data point to challenge the notion that free trade is automatically the superior economic choice.  There is an obvious first-order advantage to free trade, but I wonder if people are downplaying the second-order disadvantages (such as deindustrialization, increasing income inequality, and increased brittleness of supply chains). 

In the short run producing microprocessors in the US may not be the most economically efficient solution, compared to letting experts with know-how in Taiwan do it.  However, in the long run, the whole US economy can become paralyzed for quite some time if China levels the whole place.  Also, to get the industrial know-how, you have to sometimes eat the inefficiency on the front end while you level up your skills.

[Josquius]

I have certainly heard that the Russian economy is doing well from the perspective of ordinary workers - wages are shooting up and keeping pace with the cost of goods.

They're in kind of the opposite place of many western countries I guess. Things are actually going terribly in Russia with businesses in trouble but all seems fine for the regular man.

They have lost half a million skilled workers who had the means to flee abroad, of course the remaining workers will get paid more. Irrelevant.

Very relevant.
If to the man on the street everything appears to be going perfectly fine then unrest will be low.
It won't be something that steadily builds and damages the Russian war effort. It'll be a long delayed thing until it suddenly snaps.

[Valmy]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

Indeed there were. IIRC there were stats saying the East German Economy was one of the top 20 in the world or something. LOL.

[Sheilbh]

Indeed there were. IIRC there were stats saying the East German Economy was one of the top 20 in the world or something. LOL.

Depends on the measure but doesn't strike me as particularly implausible. Probably US, West Germany, Canada, UK, Japan, France, Italy ahead from the West and USSR in the East. Maybe Australia? 

[Jacob]

I still have a small cup among my various crockery that was made in the DDR. Obviously a sign of its economic might.

[crazy canuck]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

Indeed there were. IIRC there were stats saying the East German Economy was one of the top 20 in the world or something. LOL.

Being the top 20 in the world in 1985 wasn't saying much.  And I don't think anyone in the West was saying that wasn't that bad, despite the experience Brain had as a young person of unknown age.

[Valmy]

I bet there were people in like the mid-80s, talking how the Eastern Bloc economies weren't that bad, just look at the stats they are producing.

Indeed there were. IIRC there were stats saying the East German Economy was one of the top 20 in the world or something. LOL.

Being the top 20 in the world in 1985 wasn't saying much.  And I don't think anyone in the West was saying that wasn't that bad, despite the experience Brain had as a young person of unknown age.

I don't remember exactly where it ranked but it was somewhere in there. And I certainly remember the West Germans seeing what the state of East Germany was really like and were appalled by how bad it was compared to what was generally understood by the numbers we had been looking at previously.

[Sheilbh]

Sure but also worth thinking about Vladislav Zubok's recent book on the end of the USSR (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2022/04/12/book-review-collapse-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-by-vladislav-m-zubok/) - as I think we tend to read back an inevitability from such a seismic event. When it wasn't at all, it was highly contingent. Slightly tied to DGuller's post - I wonder if the differing interpretation of that event has shaped the last 35 years: the West ended up with a bit of a historic inevitability view, while China was obsessed by what went wrong and had to believe it was contingent (and avoidable).

On China learning from the Soviet bloc, also worth noting Isabella Weber's work on the importance of Soviet bloc economists specifically and experience (I think particularly Hungary and, outside the bloc, Yugoslavia) had on Chinese policy makers. I think it's also touched on in Julian Gerwitz's Never Turn Back.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I wonder if the example of the Russian economy is another data point to challenge the notion that free trade is automatically the superior economic choice.  There is an obvious first-order advantage to free trade, but I wonder if people are downplaying the second-order disadvantages (such as deindustrialization, increasing income inequality, and increased brittleness of supply chains). 

In the short run producing microprocessors in the US may not be the most economically efficient solution, compared to letting experts with know-how in Taiwan do it.  However, in the long run, the whole US economy can become paralyzed for quite some time if China levels the whole place.  Also, to get the industrial know-how, you have to sometimes eat the inefficiency on the front end while you level up your skills.

You can have mostly free trade and free market, with some "industrial planning." The U.S. largely followed this example for about 20 years after WWII, much of the economy was more or less like it is now, but certain sectors were subject to various forms of industrial planning that amount to government subsidy / protectionism. An example of the consequence of moving away from that is the complete collapse of the U.S. domestic shipbuilding industry, we have a token remnant industry because we legally have to still make Naval ships here, but we're already seeing that concept struggle because it is a small industry with basically one customer. Back when the broader industry was there it was more robust for naval shipbuilding as well.

There's a good argument that something like semiconductors, shipbuilding etc you should be willing to accept economic inefficiency for some level of supply stability.