The whole discussion about AI rather deserves its own thread, and -- I seem to recall -- already has one. (Although I think it was last active a while back.) For the purposes of macro-history, it's essentially pointless to discuss in depth. The existence of 'real' AI would invalidate macro-history, at least in its current form-- because macro-history relies on what we can know about
human behaviour on a large scale. If "inhuman minds" of some sort come into existence and start influencing society (and thus history) in a significant way, then the predictive model of macro-history ceases to be valid. Becase there is then a factor at work for which it cannot produce predictions.
Real AI, the arrival of aliens, or significant transhumanism... would all have that effect. So in a macro-historical context, the only answer to questions about that kind of thing is "we have no basis to predict for that". Anyone who tells you otherwise is just making it up. Whatever he says is not actually based on macro-historical analysis, because there's no precedent from which we may derive conclusions.
Note that when I speak of
real AI, that's deliberate, because I must stringently disagree with the assertion that AI currently exists. What we presently have is
false AI, or rather: the artificial simulacrum of intelligence, instead of an actual intelligence that was artificially created. Currently, "AI" is actually a trendy word and nothing more. In reality it's a misnomer for what we have.
Real artificial intelligence demand
consciousness. (The people who think intelligence requires no consciousness are dangerously wrong, and their theory of mind is balderdash.) The current attempts at "AI" lack consciousness, and in fact attempt to mimic a mind by imitating its
output. As I've said before: it's like creating artificial leaves and expecting them to grow out into branches, which then merge into a stem, which then digs itself into the earth and sprouts roots.
That's not going to work.
If we want real AI, we need to start at the roots of intelligence, and create an artificial version of
that, and carefully grow that out into a tree. That sort of thing will only learn to do the kind of trickery that current false AIs are up to
last. But when it does, it'll do so because it
understands what it is doing.
Whether that is even possible, I leave an open question. But the current attempts don't even resemble this. ChatGPT has no bearing on macro-history, and a hypothetical true AI would render macro-history (as currently understood) useless. So there's little point in discussing it further in this context, I'm afraid.
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I see. That's better than actually invading Russia.
Personally I'm not as optimistic in the proposed timeline. Hitler died in a bunker as Germany was burned to ash around him so I have reservations even a smashing defeat in Ukraine will send him "through a window" assuming Putin has done a good job of killing any would be successors. He is the man holding the country together and he can also spin the defeat, where the Western World seemingly ganged up on them, as proof to the oligarchs they are better off under him than gambling on whoever comes next. So from a coldly, cynical viewpoint we, the US, could expend a great deal of expensive hardware in exchange for merely shortening the lifespan of an already dying power that is Russia.
Once he does die, whether assisted or natural, then there is the issue that Russia has every reason to hate the West and be suspicious if not down right hostile to any aid offered either denying it, much like the USSR did with the Marshal plan, and take what deal they can get from the Chinese whose interest and shared ambitions against the West more align, or play the two powers off of each other taking as much money as they can and still end up as part of an Anti-West bloc.
I could easily see this being a repeat of the 20's and 30's when American industrialists helped to set up plants in the USSR where American know-how and money turn into weapons posed back at us. In which case it likely would be wiser not to invest money in a likely enemy/Chinese vassal.
For myself I lean towards destabilizing the region turn as much of Russia into a balkanized hell hole to the point they can't maintain or build their infrastructure. Force the Chinese not only to pay for a Marshal Plan but move their own forces into the region for security and order. Every warlord they have to buy off, every soldier stuck watching over a Russian village, every piece of equipment they have to build to harvest Russia's resources is one less that can be spent anywhere else. All while in the background fund and equip Russian Nationalists, be they Fascist, communist or Tsarist persuasion, to harry the overtly taking over Chinese and make it a wonderful moneypit quagmire.
I see the logic behind your ideas, and they certainly have merit. I do arrive at different conclusions, however. Some considerations that motivate my thinking on the matter:
-- Putin has increasingly made enemies. A purge when you seize power and "clean house" makes sense. A series of "sudden accidents" befalling your critics, and even people who might
become critics, over two decades into your reign? That indicates desperation and weakness. Fear of rivals and insurrections. What's more, it makes you dangerous to your own oligarchs. Their fear keeps them cowed, but you're an unpredictable threat to them now. They''ll want you gone, because the world
with you in it has become more dangerous than the world
without you in it.
-- This, combined with the unpleasant domestic results of Russia's, ah... glorious military campaign... (and of the sanctions), will motivate both segments of the public and segments of the elite to welcome a new regime. Note that warlordism is invariably bad for business and bad for quality of life. If Putin is the bad guy who messed up, and the West is willing to pin all the blame on him whil absolving and substantially aiding Russia... then I truly think that Western aid will be welcomed.
-- Warlord states with nukes or other WMDs are a bad idea, and I'd rather avoid that risk. So would China. This allows for a fairly diplomatic division of "spheres of interest". I don't think Western influence can reach to the Russian Far East anyway, so I'm very much open to that set-up. My intent is to place the border as far East as can realistically be managed.
-- Since the Far East has far less in the way of population, Chinese demographic domination there would then be a given. This suggests that balkanisation and warlordism, encouraged by the West to harm China, would in that scenario be inplausible. This strategy would put the warlords next door to
us (in European Russia), not next door to
them. Again: I strongly feel that we must pursue stability and order, and work hard to avoid chaos and disorder. Predictable things are easier to manage.
-- Considering the Chinese approach to its vassals, European Russians would have ample reason to see China as overt land-grabbing and colonising bastards who stole the East, while the West would be considerably less "bad". Think of Hungary in the EU now. There would be discontent and demands and... dickishness... but in the end, the benefits of going along are too attractive. That's the intrinsic motivation I'd seek to exploit. ("We don't colonise your country, we help you rebuild, and we merely demand certain... reforms". Yes, that is dickish in its own way. Insidious, even. But it generally works. I don't see Germany and Japan marching around in jackboots these days. Nor is Hungary trying to conquer bits of Romania, or can Serbia ever hope to rebuild Yugoslavia. We must do it how we did it there... but on a larger scale.)
I don't believe we in the west are capable of pulling off a Marshall plan at this point. especially not for russia where the population has been groomed to hate us and we also have a significant population that views them merely as orcs to be disposed of and not people. at best russia balkanizes and we get a couple of the former states to side with us through a lot of bribery while Ukraine gets it's old borders back and we have to foot the bill for rebuilding it.
Consider the following: the current financial system is big pyramid scheme anyway. All countries are deep in debt, deficit spending is universal, and the printing presses are running all the time. Given that reality... I say "just go ahead". Of course we have the money. It's
Monopoly money anyway. The EU bailed out Greece and Italy and Spain and Portugal in that way, too. And sure, that's certain to go wrong in the long run... but that's a given anyway.
Regarding perceptions, I can only repeat that a mere decade cafter the second of two World Wars, the hated "Krauts" and "Japs" had become our pacified allies: reliable and unthreatening. Perceptions can and do change, often quite easily. You just need the right story to tell the public.