Ukraine Crisis
The situation in Ukraine is becoming more dire by the minute. NATO is implying Russia is planning to invade Ukraine, whereas Russia denies this. Russia claims it will not allow Ukraine to enter NATO, as this would effectively put a hostile military alliance - NATO - right at the borders of Russia.
There's also political maneuvering going around, with the US never wanting a lack of enemies - soon after the disaster in Afghanistan. And Putin is wanting to shift attention away from pretty bad conditions in Russia do to the COVID pandemic and rising prices.
The situation is quite dire and could escalate into something very, very dangerous.
Here are a few links for those interested:
NATO sends reinforcements to Eastern Europe amid Russia tensions
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/24/nato-sends-reinforcements-to-eastern-europe-amid-russian-anger
Russian naval exercises off Ireland's coast 'not welcome,' says Foreign Minister
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/24/europe/russia-naval-exercise-ireland-intl/index.html
Pentagon reveals number of US troops on higher alert over Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/547231-pentagon-troops-europe-ukraine/
Rising costs of Ukraine gamble could force Russia’s hand
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/rising-costs-of-ukraine-gamble-could-force-russias-hand
Let's hope things don't escalate too much more. Welcome 2022...
There's also political maneuvering going around, with the US never wanting a lack of enemies - soon after the disaster in Afghanistan. And Putin is wanting to shift attention away from pretty bad conditions in Russia do to the COVID pandemic and rising prices.
The situation is quite dire and could escalate into something very, very dangerous.
Here are a few links for those interested:
NATO sends reinforcements to Eastern Europe amid Russia tensions
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/24/nato-sends-reinforcements-to-eastern-europe-amid-russian-anger
Russian naval exercises off Ireland's coast 'not welcome,' says Foreign Minister
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/24/europe/russia-naval-exercise-ireland-intl/index.html
Pentagon reveals number of US troops on higher alert over Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/547231-pentagon-troops-europe-ukraine/
Rising costs of Ukraine gamble could force Russia’s hand
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/rising-costs-of-ukraine-gamble-could-force-russias-hand
Let's hope things don't escalate too much more. Welcome 2022...
Comments (18084)
Sometimes, yeah. Violence was a useful part of the civil rights movement in America, for example. Sometimes threat of violence is sufficiently persuasive. The distinction, in my opinion, as to when it works is that it actually persuades, not just frightens people into submission. Submitting to an idea is not being persuaded by it. But violence can drive home the conviction of an ideology and that's often persuasive.
Again, it all depends on the circumstances. Those well-versed in the art of persuasion will never use just one tactic but will switch depending on the audience, the prevailing circumstances, the degree of hostility to the idea.
... but here I am explaining how persuasion works when that's not really what your post is about, is it? It's step one in a line of argument designed to persuade me (or others reading) of your theory. So it turns out you do know how persuasion works after all.
Yawn. This is just far-leftist parochial trash. Your paranoia does not mean you get to excuse and encourage non-Western bloodshed. The one lesson to be learnt from the mass murder of Ukranians taking place right now is that efforts to 'weaken' perceived enemies are above all the prime causes of mass death on a global scale. It will of course not be learnt. Anyone with a pulse will have learnt this paying attention to even an iota of the US hegemony challengers' foreign policy since the end of the second world war, but warmongering stains like you continue to champion this utter death-generating rubbish over and over again.
Anyway you are right, my bad, I shouldn't have talked to you. Mutual ignoring is best.
Then violence may be a good way to persuade the Russians to curb their imperialistic ambitions.
Quoting Isaac
Yet, persuading people through the threat of ostracism or insults or by repeating "putative" truths ad nausaum or pointing at somebody's "putative" inconsistency using maybe strawman arguments are all epistemically fallacious ways of persuading to me. Still when there is no ground for rational/moral agreement violence is an option as viable as one can afford, and as valid as its effectiveness. That is why Russian aggression and Western violent response to that have their "rhetoric" force in persuading or dissuading the two competing powers and other powers. Accordingly, the answer to your question ("Make war just so we don't seem weak?") can arguably be yes, while that rhetorical "just" in your question is arguably misleading or prejudicial.
Told you...
Quoting Isaac
Quoting neomac
'Epistemically fallacious'? What could that possibly mean in the context of persuasion? Persuasion either works or it doesn't, there's more or less successful methods, there might be more or less ethical methods, but I can't see what more or less 'epistemically fallacious' methods could possibly mean.
Interested now in what an epistemically non-fallacious method of persuasion might be...
Quoting neomac
So epistemically non-fallacious? Or not?
Quoting neomac
No. That is why they may. You've yet to demonstrate that they do.
Quoting neomac
Go on then...
This is so many rambly words to say it's OK that Ukrainians should drop dead on the West's behalf.
It's funny, at least the others like to pretend - or are too stupid to understand otherwise - that this is not a full blown proxy war and that it's all done for the benevolence of poor, repressed Ukrainians. It's nice to have someone come right out and say: yep, this is about the West feeling insecure!
Source: https://www.blick.ch/fr/news/monde/commentaire-allo-kissinger-emmanuel-macron-a-lecoute-id17533457.html
Do not repeat it to the twenty-six other European Heads of State or Government who meet this Monday and Tuesday in Brussels for a new extraordinary summit devoted to Ukraine: Emmanuel Macron, 44, is walking on the footsteps of the most admired and criticized master diplomat of the last century, the American Henry Kissinger.
Aged 99, the former national security adviser to Richard Nixon has just shaken up the World Economic Forum in Davos by calling on Ukraine to “make territorial concessions” to seal a lasting peace agreement with Russia.
Scandal. Barrage on the almost centenarian who always had as a model Klemens Von Metternich the Austrian Chancellor of the Napoleonic era, negotiator of the Congress of Vienna of 1815 which gave birth to the current borders of Switzerland. Haro on the man who, in the 1970s, defended the carpet bombs dropped by American B52s over Vietnam and Cambodia. Kissinger, or cynicism incarnate whose motto, ultimately, has always been the same: approach a negotiation by proclaiming ideals, then bow to the facts when it is no longer possible to change them through diplomacy or strength.
Kissinger-Macron: the association is probably not to the taste of the French head of state, whose country assumes the six-monthly rotating presidency of the European Union until the end of June. Macron is a convinced European. He tirelessly pleads for European strategic autonomy, which would allow the continent to escape the American military grip. [...]
And yet: Macron has indeed been doing his Kissinger for a few days. He continues to talk on the phone with Putin. He makes sure that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, at his side on the phone, is on the same wavelength. He held firm in the face of criticism from his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. Because Macron, like Kissinger, believes the tipping point for war in Ukraine is approaching.
Did Emmanuel Macron read the works of the German academic who emigrated before the war and became Secretary of State of the United States? Likely. Everything, in any case, agrees in the approach of the two men. Macron knows that Russia, also locked in the violent dictatorial spiral of Vladimir Putin, is inescapable, just as Kissinger, in the 1970s, knew that Washington had to negotiate with the Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse Tung. And Macron, like Kissinger once with Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam, understood that the balance of power in favor of Moscow can be delayed, but not reversed.
In Vietnam, this awful war waged by the United States in the Far East in the name of the “domino theory” – to protect the non-Communist countries of the region – Kissinger understood when Richard Nixon came to power in 1969, that his rice paddy war would never be won. He therefore worked, without pity for the Cambodian and Vietnamese civilian populations, to prepare his country to lose it by inflicting the maximum number of losses on his enemy.
Let's transpose this scheme to Ukraine and the French logic shines through: today everything must be done to increase the human, financial and military cost of this war for Moscow. But we must also, with lucidity, lead Ukraine to consider a solution other than the continuation of an unequal fight.
Kissinger was booed in the United States. His name remains synonymous with crimes committed for the sole benefit of American power. Emmanuel Macron is, fortunately, not in this position. France's military support for Ukraine, exemplified by the delivery of several powerful Caesar cannons, is in unison with the rest of the EU member countries. But let's look at the facts: equip without sending fighters... This is exactly what Kissinger's United States did in South Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords signed in 1973.
Henry Kissinger ended the war. He thus allowed his country not to find itself confronted simultaneously with the former USSR and China. In Davos in recent days, the very old man has only repeated his doctrine: military one-upmanship can be an effective means of better negotiating. It does not allow, when the imbalance of forces is colossal (as is the case in Ukraine, against Russia), to reverse the situation.
Emmanuel Macron has not yet been to Kyiv. It is rumored that he could go there to deliver the last speech of the French rotating presidency of the European Union, at the end of June. It would be a clever and meaningful gesture. He has to take that risk. [...]
Quoting Olivier5
And if so - what seems to be the issue, exactly?
Consider Putin's involvement in America's 2016 election, and maybe you'd understand this attitude. Whether or not the actions, which are a manifestation of the attitude, are justifiable, is another question.
Unclear, please rephrase.
As an excuse for democrats to offshore the fact that they irredeemably suck? What does that have to do with anything?
Should people not be trying to increase the costs of war on Moscow? Should people not be trying to end the continuation of a war between unequal belligerents?
Partners in crime (...like Putin and Trump) often become enemies when the chips are down.
Maybe his favorite kangaroo ran away with a Frenchman?
I can be persuaded by rational or irrational reasons what to hold to be true. Being persuaded by irrational reasons is fallacious, and as long as it has to do with truth then it's epistemically fallacious.
Quoting Isaac
Logic, mathematics, scientific empirical methods, journalistic methods, administrative/institutional methods are such methods. They vary in scope, rigor and pre-conditions for their application. Even common sense is epistemically pretty reliable in our ordinary daily life.
Quoting Isaac
Well that depends on the reasons why one would opt for violence in the given circumstances.
Quoting Isaac
It's impossible to "demonstrate" in the sense of providing evidences for future events or counter-factuals. But the "rhetoric" force concerns people's expectations in condition of uncertainty: the ratio of increasing the military, economic, and human costs of the Russian aggression for the Russians is in deterring them (an other powers challenging the current World Order) from pursing aggressively their imperialistic ambitions, and this makes perfect sense in strategic terms given certain plausible assumptions (including the available evidence like Putin's political declarations against the West + all his nuclear, energy, alimentary threats, his wars on the Russian border, his attempts to build an international front competing against Western hegemony, Russian military and pro-active presence in the Middle East and in Africa, Russian cyber-war against Western institutions, Putin's ruthless determination in pursuing this war at all costs after the annexation of Crimea which great strategic value from a military point of view, his huge concentration of political power, all hyper-nationalist and extremist people in his national TV and entourage with their revanchist rhetoric, etc.), of course.
Quoting Isaac
It's boring to repeat myself.
Ukrainians have chosen to fight the Russians who are destroying their life and their country. That concerns the Ukrainian national interest, Westerners legitimately decided to support them for Western plausible security concerns too, of course. And the fact that Ukrainians are more pro-Western than anti-Western is one more reason to intervene. There is no need to talk in terms of "benevolence" especially when the "benevolence" of the alleged pacifists are so instrumental in reaching the arguably worst outcome for the Ukrainians according to the Ukrainians, and supporting Russian imperialistic ambitions.
You misspelled "so that they can siphon tax money to arms dealers and turn Ukraine into a debt prison producing Nikes for the Western middle class while eliminating a competitor model of capitalism that does not play by the West's rules while letting Ukrainians drop dead for those goals, thanks to a war they precipitated and did everything to encourage and continue to prolong".
The West does not, and has never had 'security concerns'. It only ever has had challenges to its genocidal model of global domination. Anyone who thinks the US in particular has 'security concerns' half-way across the fucking planet is a clown.
To the degree that the Ukraine is crawling with Nazis who decisively tipped the course of events into war, then sure, I agree that the "Ukrainians are more pro-Western than anti-Western". Nazis being a uniquely Western apogee of civilization.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/31/once-upon-a-time-in-londongrad-review-putin-deaths-russian
(on how Putin can kill whoever he wants to, wherever they are)
(And how London in particular let Putin ride roughshod all over it to get that sweet sweet Russian billionaire cash at the expense of their own citizens and their ability to afford to live in their own country).
You might be a bit generous.
Quoting Streetlight
Meanwhile, life goes on in Ukraine (for some at least), just a bit differently.
Bakhmut family with no gas or power cook outside (May 31, 2022)
Would it be worthwhile listing some peace-makers?
No NATO membership for Ukraine wasn't one apparently.
An obvious one is Putin taking his land-grabbing attempts down a notch, moving his troopers (and Nazi mercs) home, out of harm's way, well, if they also stop bombing.
...?
I don't have the information to agree with it because it really depends on what it costs us, or more specifically, what it costs Ukrainians, to "increase the human, financial and military cost of this war for Moscow". I think, in any case, it's a callous approach from the comfort of not actually fighting and if making territorial concessions to negotiate a lasting peace is the right approach then one assumption often seen (but not proved in my view) is:
1. Russia has imperial ambitions. If this is the case, then territorial concessions do not lead to a lasting peace. Some here are convinced Russia has these ambitions, others don't. I haven't seen definitive proof one way or the other.
Other questions it raises with me:
2. No country sending equipment seems to have asked the question whether support in the war effort is the right balance of interests between avoiding Ukrainian casualties and bleeding the Russians.
3. The last clear example of aggression (that got condemned) was Iraq invading Kuwait with a much wider range of coalition partners than we see now. That could be political expediency, energy dependency, cynicism in light of the Western double standard or a more nuanced view than propagated in Western media about the underlying reasons why Russia attacked Ukraine.
Weird. What scientific studies have you read about Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Or weirder still mathematical ones? Did someone derive a new solution to quadratic equations which proves there are no Nazis in Ukraine? Does the theory that the US provoked Russia defy the law of the excluded middle?
Quoting neomac
Do you mean phone hacking...?
Quoting neomac
...put the Kafka down.
Quoting neomac
Ah! Just when I'd finished playing cliche bingo and all, damn. I could have got "I arrived at my conclusions by Common Sense..."
Quoting neomac
OK, so the 'epistemically non-fallacious' route would be?
Quoting neomac
Or not.
The point (the one you interjected about) is that your speculation here might work out, or it might not. You can't possibly say for sure. The empirical evidence is insufficient to choose between theories, there's been no scientific paper on it, no mathematician has compressed it into an irrefutable formula, it hasn't been rendered into truth tables... You just have to choose which to believe.
So why do you believe that one?
That's fair. I would assume that cessation of hostilities would take priority in the order of the two points mentioned. I guess I asked as well because there seem to be many here for whom "punish Russia/punish Putin" seemed to be the overriding concern, above all else. And if that was at least among the things Macron is pushing, then I wonder why the curious promotion of an article that unflatteringly compares him to Kissinger. Macron having been a target for many for not hewing entirely 100% to the US State department line. Just like, 80% only.
Your other questions are good too and it's hard to answer them. As for the second though, one can only look on in utter disbelief. The US created the Taliban no less than the Contras thanks to their pouring in of weapons, and to now pour them into the largest concentration of Nazis in Europe? Good lord it's horrifying. These are the same people, of course, who are materially supporting (rebranded) Al-Qaeda in Syria right now as we speak.
He mustn't be very good at "avoiding escalation" then, as he keeps escalating! :grin:
He's just agreed to give Ukraine advanced rocket systems:
Biden agrees to provide Ukraine with longer range missiles - Reuters
The likelihood that Ukraine will stick to its "assurances" seems pretty slim. Plus, the rocket systems (MLRS) that Biden is giving to Ukraine can be used to fire long-range munitions supplied by other countries or bought on the black market.
Obviously, this goes far beyond the original commitment NATO made to only send “defensive systems” to Ukraine.
I think what Biden is doing is escalate by stealth. And the same applies to Boris Johnson who has also called for the West to give Ukraine long-range weapons ....
Europeans have already warned the US against getting too giddy about a never ending proxy war. There is risk here, of the US believing its own propaganda. Biden needs to keep his head cool.
What I said, originally, is that it is neither naïve nor immoral nor unphilosophical to support a democracy that is being attacked by a dictatorship. On the contrary, it is the natural, logical, and moral thing to do. If one's philosophy leads one to see no difference between an offensive militaristic dictatorship and a defending democracy, then maybe one's philosophy is fucked up.
In short, equating Putin and Zelensky is not philosophical and sophisticated at all, far from it. It is being cretinous, callous, and lazy.
In other words, escalation that can sooner or later lead to WW3.
Biden did say "For God's sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power".
And don't forget the influence defense corporations like Lockheed Martin, that are making a fortune from selling weapons to Ukraine and other European countries, have on the US government.
So, when Russian TV says that NATO has already started WW3, it seems close enough to the reality on the ground, given that multiple powers are now involved in their proxy-war against Russia.
While it may be argued that the conflict is currently "local", it still has the potential to become worldwide. In any case, the more weapons America and NATO give Ukraine, the more Russia will feel forced to escalate. And all this could have been avoided by taking into consideration Russia's security concerns.
As for European countries, there are significant differences between them. The most belligerent seem to be countries with a long anti-Russian track record like England and Poland. A distinction must also be drawn between governments calling for all-out jihad on Russia and ordinary people for whom war is the last thing they needed ....
Quoting Olivier5
I think that is true only after due consideration of all the facts. But you have expressly stated that considering Russia's case would be "unprincipled". And taking things at face value while ignoring the underlying causes does seem superficial and unphilosophical.
What if your "democracy" isn't a genuine democracy but a front for rule by oligarchs and kleptocrats?
Even if a democracy is genuine, it can still be used by third parties to threaten Russia, for example by taking over the Black Sea and stationing nuclear systems on Ukraine's territory.
I think the US has been quite decent in it's response. And what is notable that it has been a quite unified response from the West.
Ain't that the truth?
Quoting Apollodorus
Their lies and excuses are not worthy of consideration, unless you want to participate in their propaganda and help them kill more folks. If they care to be taken seriously, they could try and not insult other people's intelligence, and stop actively slaughtering innocent folks. Otherwise, they can go to hell as far as I am concerned, and so can any and all war crime apologist.
Yep, the numbers alone matter and Russia has them.
Similarly, Russia has an additional degree of freedom, being the attacker; the Ukrainians are already home.
We're talking fairly large populations here; I can see attrition leading to a lot of hate in the Ukrainian population.
Where things were supposed to improve, less corruption, less hate, more freedom, more opportunities for anyone, ..., Putin has instead ensured some regression.
And the largest trader in black market weapons in Europe too. It's a fucking powder keg.
...but hey, we have to reign in that relentless Russian imperialism which, since the end of the Soviet Union has seen them occupy almost an entire country.
Yep. And then your sole support for that assertion was the people you've met in some African nations prefer democracy. Which completely ignores the question of whether such support is the "moral thing to do".
If one cannot be sure any specific democracy is morally superior to any specific dictatorship, then on what ground is supporting a war of the former against the latter the "moral thing to do", given the tragic consequences of such a war?
Correct. On February 9, 1990, George H. W. Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker said to Soviet leader Gorbachev that following the unification of Germany, "there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east". A few years later under Clinton NATO began to expand.
IMO, US statements of this kind often were (a) deliberately ambiguous and/or (b) not put into any legally binding agreement so that they could be reinterpreted or retracted at a later point.
But the real problem here seems to be people like @ssu and @Olivier5 who insist that to even consider Russia’s case would be “unprincipled” or that Russia recognized Ukrainian independence and borders in eternity and it isn’t allowed to change its mind, etc.
Quoting Olivier5
It may be the "truth" according to Biden and his European cheerleaders. Not according to most of the world, though. You keep looking at it through the lens of America and its European client-states. And you call it "philosophy" ....
Quoting Olivier5
How do you know something isn't worthy of consideration when you haven't considered it???
Besides, to say that “to look at the other side’s evidence is unprincipled”, goes against the very principle of justice that you claim to be defending. Moreover, it amounts to saying that expanding your knowledge is “unprincipled” and “unphilosophical”!!!
And let’s not forget that France is a pro-American country. So, hardly “unbiased”. This explains why you and @ssu hold similar views. As they say, birds of a feather flock together.
Quoting Olivier5
So, that's what it's all about, your need to be "comforted"! Perhaps, you should get yourself a girlfriend or something? I hear there’re quite a few Ukrainians available in France these days …. :wink:
Quoting ssu
By "unified" you probably mean "in lockstep with America". Not in the least surprising, given that the West is dominated by America! :rofl:
You’ve already admitted to being from Finland (probably from a small village) and to being born in the 70’s. And that’s exactly what your comments are reflecting. You’re trying to impose on others the views of someone who was brought up in fear of Communist Russia and is unable to see (a) that Russia (and the world) have changed and (b) that America may have contributed to the creation of the current conflict.
Your claims that Crimea belongs to Ukraine, that borders can’t be changed, that Russia recognized Ukraine’s independence in 1991, and Ukraine’s borders in 1994, etc., have been exposed as baseless.
Crimea has never had more than a small Ukrainian minority and has never been “Ukrainian”. When Khrushchev “gifted” Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, this was purely a matter of internal administration within the Soviet Union. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, Russia allowed it to keep Crimea but on the understanding that it could continue to use the military and naval bases there which Russia had used since 1783. This became impossible when Ukraine decided to join NATO. Very simple and easy to understand, IMO.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea is arguably legitimate (a) because it had been Russian from 1783 and (b) because a NATO-controlled Crimea would virtually turn the Black Sea, which Russia needs for transit to the Mediterranean, into a NATO lake. To claim that NATO, i.e., AMERICA, has more rights over Crimea than Russia is simply absurd.
As I explained to you already, Ukrainian independence wasn’t a problem at the time. It became a problem after 1994 when Ukraine decided to get closer and closer to NATO and NATO became increasingly hostile toward Russia.
Moreover, declassified minutes of a March 6, 1991 Quadripartite Meeting Of Political Directors in Bonn, Germany (between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany) show that the West did actually agree that NATO will not expand to the east.
This was confirmed by British and German diplomats:
Has NATO reneged on a 1991 agreement with Russia - Euro Weekly News
For more details see:
Michel Disdero, Quadripartite Meeting – Academia Edu
Original doc (PREM19/3326) available at the UK National Archives:
EUROPEAN POLICY. European security and defence: part 1 - The National Archives
And, as already stated, the 1994 “Budapest Memorandum” is NOT a legally binding guarantee.
US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt said in May 2014 that "the Budapest Memorandum was not an agreement on security guarantees" and the official US position has always been that the memorandum is a “political commitment that is not legally binding" ("Belarus: Budapest Memorandum". U.S. Department of State. 12 April 2013).
Obviously, for the memorandum to qualify as a guarantee, it would need to specify measures to be taken by the signatories in the event any of them violate the agreement. That’s precisely why it is called “Memorandum on Security Assurances” and not “Memorandum on Security Guarantees”. The term “guarantee” does not occur anywhere in the memorandum.
Anyway, Russia has a right to recognize or de-recognize anything according to its own national interests.
Borders are NOT eternal. They change. If Russia changed the borders by “gifting” Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, it can change them again by annexing Crimea 60 years later! :smile:
So, the way I see it, it all depends on how threatened by NATO Russia felt. If it had good reasons to feel threatened, and it thought its actions would eliminate or reduce that threat, then its actions are legitimate, period. It isn't for Finland to decide either way.
Quoting Isaac
So far, the idea has not really been challenged much so I haven't provided additional arguments. But I can try to add a few arguments, if the topic is of interest.
Prior to any consideration of political regime, and the varied levels of freedom and security they afford to their citizens, to me the first and most important point here is that of aggression vs defence. There is no moral symmetry between an aggressor and his victim. Since 1945 and probably before, the principle of self-defense as a right, and the prohibition of wanton aggression extend beyond the individual, and also apply to those nations who signed the UN charter, including of course Russia and Ukraine.
These principles (that a UN charter signatory should not wage war on another; and that an aggressed signatory nation has a right to defending herself) are the cornerstone of our present world order. The prohibition of aggression suffers one exception: a war or a military operation can be approved by the UN security council (another cornerstone of the present world order).
These principles were of course disrespected by many nations since 1945, but only gravely undermined by a permanent member of the UN Security Council twice (to my math): by the US in Iraq war 2, and by Russia in Crimea and now in Ukraine mainland.
So yes, the US started it. Rest assured that I was just as opposed to the wanton aggression of Iraq by the US and UK as I am opposed to the wanton agression of Ukraine by Russia. For the exact same reason: it gravely undermined international law and the credibility of the present UN system, which maintains some level of peace building capacity.
(and yet Iraq was a dictatorship and the UK/US are sorts of democracies, because to me the prohibition of aggression trumps other principles -- I don't believe in exporting democracy at gunpoint)
Now this UN system may be highly imperfect, but it is a system at least trying to contribute to world peace. Without it, untill someone proposes something else, in the post UN world now concocted by Xi and Putin and whose recipe Bush wrote, what will deter a new wave of wars of plunder?
Nothing. There will be no rules whatsoever in international relations. Not even a pretense of one. Not even a hope of one.
So as someone attached to diplomacy and peace, I say I oppose wanton aggression. This is a moral stance based on the search for the common good. For world peace. For my kids' sake too.
Now you can laugh.
Oh I have considered them and refuted them, for the most part. I or someone else here. I'm just not ready to dignify what I see as little more than war crime apologies à la "NATO caca" with an endless debate during hundreds of pages, sorry.
Don't forget that Saddam Hussein had even less rational thinking when he attacked Kuwait, his former ally, after a disastrous war against Iran. That the Soviet Union left Iraq on it's own and did OK the war against Iraq tells just how bad this idea was.
Getting Syria into an US lead alliance is a true show of total incompetence from that dictator. If I remember correctly, Hussein had to kill his military commander because he was so opposed to the idea of attacking Kuwait.
Lots of Western business doesn’t welcome this war, its continuation and related sanctions precisely because it interrupted their business with Russia and Ukraine. On the other side the competitor capitalist model opposing the West is supported by authoritarian regimes. Nobody can easily get rid of Western arms dealers as long as they are instrumental in addressing Western security concerns competing with non-Western security concerns and related non-Western arms dealers. The problem is not arms dealers business per se but the security threat perception between State powers, and to authoritarian regimes the fear of losing power is arguably greater than any national security threats b/c dictators literally risk their skin, if their power is compromised. Ukrainians could surrender to the Russians if they wanted, but they didn’t and they don’t seem to need encouragement from abroad, they just need weapons. Westerners legitimately helped them due their security concerns and international commitments more than economic concerns.
Quoting Streetlight
That’s exactly why I talked about the Europeans. For the US, the “security concerns” must be understood wrt their hegemonic power, of course.
Quoting Streetlight
Apparently Ukrainians prefer to be Nazi than Russian, go figure how shitty it feels like to experience Russian hegemony (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-20th-century-history-behind-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-180979672/), go figure!
When the sovereignty and independence of a state is recognized, you recognize it's borders. But that's of course baseless for you.
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
Again you clearly show that you are truly a delusional Putin troll. Or a crank. You even mix up Russia and Soviet Union, obviously.
Sounds like what you're advocating world government there. :smile:
Quoting Olivier5
That depends on (1) how you define "aggressed signatory nation" (2) what happens when a nation has the "right" to defend itself but not the means to do so, and (3) what if that nation isn't even recognized as a nation.
Tibet was invaded and annexed by China in 1951. What has the UN done to enforce the Tibetan nation's "right to defend herself"?
Turkey invaded and occupied Cyprus in 1974. What has the UN done to help its member nation?
The Kurdish nation amounts to about 40 million people, i.e., the size of Ukraine. It was promised a state in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres (that you ought to have heard about). But it never got one.
Even worse, NATO allows its member Turkey to invade Kurdish territories in Syria and to suppress Kurds in Turkey itself with impunity.
Quoting Olivier5
I thought you might say that! Unfortunately, I don't recall anything that would qualify as "refutation". Perhaps you're talking about the pro-NATO propaganda peddled by people like @ssu .... :grin:
Incidentally, according to Ukraine’s ministry of defense, the Ukrainians killed nearly 30,000 Russian troops.
But US and UK intelligence says it’s more like 15,000.
If official Ukrainian claims are only 50% true, then the remaining 50% must be lies.
See also:
Former Navy officer reveals chaos of Ukrainian army – ITN
Ukraine Faces Brutal Fight Against Russia in the East, Losing Men and Ground - The New York Times
All this demonstrates that it isn’t just the Russians who are telling lies.
So, what exactly is it that makes Ukrainian lies “better”, “more true”, or “worthy of consideration”???
As if chopping your way out to some dumb remark you can smirk about, wasn’t even more weird.
Quoting Isaac
Insufficient for what? to whom? Uncertainty doesn’t prevent us from making rational choices. The points I made for example are sufficient to rationally justify my perception of the Russian threat against the West, in other words mine is not paranoia or Russo[I]phobia[/i]: is this perception of mine fallaciously grounded on somebody’s repeating to me that Russia is a threat or the result of peers psychological pressure (through ostracism or insults)? No it’s based on those evidences I listed and more. Are those evidences false? no. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences? No, they support each other. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences and historical patterns of aggressive behavior by authoritarian regimes or in particular by Russia? No, the aggression of Ukraine by Russia has disturbing echoes of Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland (https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/russias-attack-ukraine-through-lens-history), and the annexation/Russification of Crimea is a leitmotif of Russian politics since the end of 18th century being key to Russian commercial and military projection in the mediterranean area (including Middle East and North Africa, and surrounding Europe). Add to that the historical deep scars Ukraine, Finland, Poland and all other ex-Soviet Union countries in east Europe had with Russian empire and/or Soviet Union.
So, since thinking strategically requires one to spot potential threats, possibly way before they become too big because then it will be too late, what other evidence would one ordinary risk-averse Western citizen valuing their country’s democracy and economy more than Russian’s exactly need to perceive Russian aggressive expansionism and geopolitical interference as a threat to the West ?
"Recognizing borders" doesn't prevent a country from de-recognizing them or from invading the country whose borders it had recognized.
Quoting ssu
How exactly do I "mix up Russia and Soviet Union"???
If, according to you, the Soviet Union can take Crimea from Russia and give it to Ukraine, Russia can take it back. Very simple and easy to understand. Though, obviously, not for confused and clueless NATO Nazis .... :rofl:
You have a problem with diplomacy?
Quoting Apollodorus
You wouldn't.
Was Nikita Khrushchev the leader of Russia or the leader of the Soviet Union (or more correctly the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union)?
But that's not the end of it...
Things like your crazy idea that because the Budapest Memorandum isn't a security guarantee (as NATO or the CSTO membership is), that somehow the wording isn't then what it is:
That the countries by the principles of CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.
Diplomacy leading to world government? Yes. I believe in a multipolar world order.
Quoting ssu
As usual, you do no more than expose your ignorance.
1. The transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was approved by the Soviet government and signed by the legal head of state, Klim Voroshilov.
2. The Soviet Union was majority Russian and was usually referred to as “Russia”.
3. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia ‘a.k.a. the “Russian Federation” assumed the Soviet Union's rights and was recognized as its continued legal personality in international affairs.
4. It follows that Russia, as the continued legal personality of the Soviet Union, took back Crimea that it had earlier given to Ukraine.
But, as I said, its fun to see NATO Nazis trying to "think" .... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Says WHO? The extreme left?
Victor Hugo, H G Wells, Roosevelt, Bertrand Russell, and many other advocates of world government, are “extreme right”?
The UN may or may not be far from being world government. That doesn't mean it isn't on the road to becoming one.
Plus, in the meantime, America and NATO seem to be playing the role of interim world government ... :grin:
You said it yourself. And the Soviet government isn't the Russian government.
Quoting Apollodorus
Interestingly just barely. In 1989 Russians indeed were the majority in the Soviet Union, but just with 50,8% being ethnically Russian. Likely afterwards ethnic Russians would have become the minority, if the Soviet Union had continued. Where you have population growth are in places like Uzbekistan, not in Russia.
Quoting Apollodorus
Is that why you keep calling others "trolls" and "delusional"? :rofl:
50% Russian means Russians were the largest and dominant ethnic group and Russia was the largest political and territorial entity, that's why the country was called "Russia" as a general designation.
The Soviet Union was referred to as "Russia" in every-day language including in the press.
And Russia is the continued legal personality of the Soviet Union.
Even if the Soviet Union and Russia were totally distinct and unconnected, Crimea can still be taken back from Ukraine in the same way it was given to it.
It isn't my fault that you don't understand something as simple and easy to understand as that .... :smile:
World government - Wikipedia
Maybe comes with his position here.
One would just want this war to be over with. For everybody's sake.
Well, it seems that not everyone is level headed. And some aren't even trying.
As for the war being over soon, that's unlikely if NATO keeps throwing more and more weapons into it ....
Complete bullshit not worth entertaining.
Quoting neomac
Europeans do what Americans tell them.
Quoting neomac
Oh well that makes it OK then.
Only by ignorant outsiders.
[url]
https://davidswanson.org/warlist//url]
[urlThere is a reason that most countries polled in December 2013 by Gallup called the United States the greatest threat to peace in the world, and why Pew found that viewpoint increased in 2017.
But it is a reason that eludes that strain of U.S. academia that first defines war as something that nations and groups other than the United States do, and then concludes that war has nearly vanished from the earth.
Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 85 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries. The United States is responsible for the deaths of 5 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and over 1 million just since 2003 in Iraq.
Since 2001, the United States has been systematically destroying a region of the globe, bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines. The United States has “special forces” operating in two-thirds of the world’s countries and non-special forces in three-quarters of them.
See also How Many Millions Have Been Killed in America’s Post-9/11 Wars? Part 3: Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen by Nicolas Davies
The U.S. government provides weapons, military training, and/or military funding to almost every dictatorship and oppressive government on earth. See my 2020 book 20 Dictators Currently Supported by the U.S.[/url]
Right. So as usual you're answering a question that wasn't even asked. @unenlightened's original question, which intrigued me, was about the moral difference between the Russian and Ukrainian governments, not the situation they currently happen to find themselves in (aggressor and defender).
No one is in favour of aggression, so arguing against it is just empty virtue signalling. The point about the moral worth of governments is one about what to do now that one of those governments has attacked the other. The point being made, as I understand it, was that since there's only hair's breadth between different governments (when not at war), then ceding territory as a means of ending war has little moral opposition other than your demand for 'punishment' (that Russia must not gain anything by its actions). In terms of people's well-being, it matters little if they're governed by Russia or Ukraine. It may well matter a lot to them, as a preference (they may be passionate about Ukrainian sovereignty), but as third parties, there's no moral weight at all to what some population of people just happen to prefer. This should be obvious; if Ukrainians happened to prefer a Nazi dictator, for example, we'd not support that. That Ukrainians happen to prefer a Ukrainian government over a Russian one is similarly morally neutral unless the Ukrainian government is significantly more worthy (in peacetime) than the Russian one.
I don't think there's a single person here who wants to see aggression rewarded, or side with the aggressor. But then I think you know that already, it just makes a useful distraction to avoid actually addressing the arguments to simply add your little 'Putinista' labels to anything you can't counter.
The travesty here is that we (the world in general) ought to be talking about how to end this war (and every other war) as quickly as possible, but instead we're talking about how to most effectively 'punish' Russia for its aggression. It has odd echos of the gun control debate ("it's the perpetrators we need to punish more, not the gun culture that needs to change"). If ceding territory ends the war (even has only a good chance of doing so) then that's a huge positive. To counter that there'd need to be a massive negative. All you've given thus far to weigh against it is the "punish Putin" argument and the "Ukraine is better than Russia" argument. @unenlightened's point about the lack of real distinction between governments undermines that second counter-argument. To revive it, you'd have to show that the prospective peacetime Ukrainian government (the one we're aiming for in defending against Russia) would be significantly morally better than the prospective peacetime Russian government (the one that would be in place in the ceded territories). Hence your arguments about aggressors and defenders are irrelevant.
OK. I'll try to take you seriously. How do any of the 'methods' you list apply to the debate here? How do they lead to a decision on one theory over another?
Quoting neomac
Yes, but other - perfectly intelligent - people disagree. Your epistemic peers disagree. So either you are the sole possessor of some magic ability to discern what is rational and what is not, or there is a legitimate difference of opinion about the two conflicting theories which cannot be resolved by appealing to rational support (since that forms part of the disagreement to be resolved). Hence the question why choose side A over side B?
You can list a dozen reasons why your choice of side A is reasonable, rational, and I'd probably agree with the vast majority of them, but we're not talking about why side A is one of the available options, we're talking about why you chose it over side B, which is also one of the available options (reasonable rational people have also reached that conclusion).
Either you're arguing that you're just much smarter than all of them, or you have to concede that their position too is reasonable and rational - ie, in Quinean terms, the facts underdetermine the theory.
Maybe it was a good idea but it is not a current one, outside of the extreme right's paranoid fear of the Jews, George Soros, and the alien lizards controlling the whole world.
How do you describe your own politics? You're one of those crackpots who's so fucking afraid of them world-dominating leftists?
If a defendant uses defensive force because of a threat of deadly or grievous harm by the other person, or a reasonable perception of such harm, the defendant is said to have a "perfect self-defense" justification.[/quote]
:chin:
This is the big mistake that the "peace lovers" here are making, in my view: they assume it's all for nothing, that there is no difference between living in a free country and being a subject of a brutal dictatorship. But if the Russian army wins, it will not stop killing Ukrainians. Why should they? Did they stop in Bucha?
If the Russians win, chances are they will kill more Ukrainians, not less. Check the 'Holodomor', when Stalin set out to kill millions of Ukrainians by way of hunger so as to replace them by other ethnicities.
Right. So you are making the argument that the Russian government (even in peacetime) is morally worse than the Ukrainian government? On what grounds?
If something Stalin did counts, then are we going to invoke the massacre of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgents back in WWII? It's as ridiculous to suggest that Stalin's atrocities are a good measure of current Russian internal policy. Gods, it really shows the paucity of your arguments. Only a few pages ago I was being reprimanded for assuming the situation in Ukraine now was similar to that in 2014 and here you are invoking Stalin as representative of Russian policy!
Ukraine is not a 'free country'. By every single measure of freedom and well-being it ranks similar (or even below) Russia. Here, for example are the 2021 figures on corruption https://risk-indexes.com/global-corruption-index/
Belarus (undoubtedly a Russian puppet state) ranked 53 on the United Nations Human Development. Ukraine, ranked 74.
What actual evidence (ie from less than half a century ago!) have you got that Ukraine is so much better than Russia (in peacetime) that we ought to support the sacrifice of thousands of lives the cause?
https://holod.media/2022/05/24/okkupant_movie/
... Lieutenant Shalaev is just one of the results of this work to deprive Russian citizens of their subjectivity. Working at the headquarters and watching his colleagues leave the army on the eve of the war, he could not even think about quitting himself and did not go into the possible reasons for the quitting of others.
... During an hour-long interview with Zolkin, we can observe how Lieutenant Shalaev begins to awaken his natural curiosity. Like most of the prisoners in these videos, at first he is depressed and passive, but towards the end of the conversation, he asks the journalist twice, almost passionately: “How did you [Ukrainians] understand that you want to be in Europe?”
In this question, there is the genuine amazement of a Russian at a meeting with the subjectivity of a neighboring people, who not only managed to formulate their desired identity for themselves, but also to agree within themselves on ways to move towards it. This very subjectivity is so hated by the control-obsessed Russian authorities that it is subject to destruction from the ground and the air. This very subjectivity, without which a person turns into a material object, and never becomes a subject, an author of his own life.
No, you're not 'making the argument' at all, you're just asserting it. You've given no evidence, or reason to believe that "The only way to stop these killings is to push the Russians back into Russia". The argument is that ceding territory would have the same effect (with a smaller loss of life). You've offered no counter to that argument at all beyond some spurious allusion to Stalin's genocides.
That's the war we're trying to stop (or ought to be). The treatment of Ukrainian resistance during the Russian invasion has been monstrous. That's why we're trying to put an end to the Russian invasion as quickly as possible.
I could ask you exactly the same question. In advocating the policy of pushing Russian forces out of Ukraine (no matter how long that takes) have you taken into consideration the behavior of Russian troops in occupied Ukraine? All of which will be worsened the longer the war continues.
Compare how the Ukrainians dealt with pro-Russian elements in Donbas with how Russia dealt with pro-Ukrainian elements in Crimea. Any major differences you know of? Those would constitute a basis for an argument about the likely outcome of ceding territory.
I agree. The sooner the Russians go back to Russia, the better, including for them Russians. I think that's obvious.
Yeah, ignoring the argument doesn't make it go away.
:party: :clap: :party:
Not me, people like Kissinger. If you're having trouble spotting which the argument is, it's the bit after the words "The argument is..."
I've put forward an argument. I'm just not going to pretend I came up with it out of the blue. I read it.
The argument is that ceding territory to Russia will be a less harmful strategy overall than continuing to push them out of Ukraine.
The main points used to support it are;
1. Ukraine are unlikely to be able to push Russia out easily, so such any such strategy will lead to a very long war, the damage from which would be considerable.
2. To have any chance at all, Ukraine would have to indebt itself massively to the US and Europe, neither of whom have loan terms which are friendly to the debtor.
3. Ukraine is neither a stable, nor a particularly free country so life under Russian puppetry is not likely to be meaningfully different to life under Ukrainian rule.
4. Any remaining problems are less harmfully solved by economic and diplomatic pressure than by war.
I could also add, from separate sources;
5. Ukraine has a serious far-right problem and is a major illegal arms trader, flooding it with weapons could lead to far more civilian deaths in the long term than would be saved.
Personally, I do not see it as my duty to argue for or against a particular renegotiation of the borders with respect to this thread's subject, but I want to at least point to some of the reasons why borders are always disputable, especially in relation to the right to self-determination, which governments claim for themselves by virtue of their existence , but do not necessarily respect the claims of other governments. And if the rights in such matters cannot be determined but are always debatable, then the morality of the disputants in terms of attack and defence is also indeterminate. An agreement is reached or there is a civil or uncivil war, or a separatist movement or a unification movement.
Not necessarily.
I don't know where you're from but, historically, the term "Russia" has been applied to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union (USSR), and, currently, to the Russian Federation, in everyday language.
As far as I’m aware, people said, and continue to say, "Russia" instead of "Russian Empire", "Soviet Union", or "Russian Federation". The latter terms tend to be used in more formal political or academic contexts.
“Russia” and “Soviet Union” are certainly used interchangeably in the press:
Russia Under Stalin 1924-1953 – New York Times, March 8, 1953
Israel Fears Russia Is Preparing For War – The Times (London), Jan. 25, 1953
Ministers To Propose Talks With Russia – The Times (London), July 12, 1953
Quoting Olivier5
Well, I appreciate your sense of humor, but I don't see how being against world government and advocating a multipolar world order is "crackpot".
As for being "afraid", it sounds very much like you're afraid of some imaginary "extreme right". But that only means that you're afraid of your own politics as Natoism is definitely a form of Nazism (it even sounds similar) as well as being a manifestation of US imperialism! :grin:
American imperialism – Wikipedia
On what basis. I've provided the latest official measurements of political freedom, corruption, well-being... Ukraine doesn't come out significantly higher than Russia on any measure. So what information do you have to the contrary?
And even if we were to put (3) as more uncertain, does that then outweigh 1, 2, 4, and 5?
The extreme right is not a fancy of mine. It does exist and it pollutes the minds of many, including yours.
You seem to be confused.
How exactly is being for a multipolar world order and against imperialism and world government "extreme right"???
I think what is extreme right is your advocacy of world government, American imperialism, and Natoism!
BTW, if you're afraid of the "extreme right", then surely it's in YOUR mind, not mine! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
To be fair, the Russians also have shown a certain resolve and interest in staying independent from America and its NATO Empire.
As for your "guess", (1) a guess is NOT the same as established fact and (2) you haven't demonstrated that there was any prospect of Ukrainians "going the way of the Uighurs".
As expected. Raise any actual points and you just dismiss them all with bald assertion and vague handwaving...
Shall we just go back to insulting each other?
Should Europeans do what Russians tell them? Or you tell them?
Quoting Streetlight
Only if it makes it OK for you that Russians are bombing, killing, raping their Ukrainian "brothers" and "sisters".
Besides it's not uncommon to have fascist/ultra-nationalists in the national armies: https://www.vice.com/it/article/5989xx/fascismo-para-folgore-esercito-italiano , https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2021/03/17/une-enquete-de-mediapart-devoile-la-presence-de-militaires-neonazis-dans-l-armee-francaise_6073486_3224.html
Not to mention the Russian ultra-nationalists very friendly to Putin.
What do you want to do about that, boss?
Christ, your brain is so rotted by treating this as a team-sport to cheer-lead to that your question is: which non-European entity should tell Europe what to do?
Quoting neomac
See, this is why you are an idiot not worth paying attention to. The Nazis who pushed Zelensky to war did so because they were Ukrainian nationalists who did not want any compromise with Russia - including ratifying Minsk, or say, not shelling the ever-living daylights out of Russian-speaking Ukraine.
But please, continue your defense of Nazis.
And when that fails, he resorts to name-calling and hurling abuse. Are you sure he isn't related to @ssu? I for one seem to detect a striking resemblance of ideology, attitude, and language.
I cannot demonstrate the future. But certainly, the Ukrainians are angry by the massive war crimes committed against them and they fear more is to come if ever Russia takes over any part of Ukraine. That's the legacy of Bucha. They are not going to let themselves be slaughtered like the Tchechens were.
Europeans should, of course, do what Europeans say.
However, it depends on what kind of Europeans we're talking about, and under the influence of which non-European power they operate. From what I see, America has far more influence on Europe than Russia.
So, @Streetlight does seem to have a point.
One important point to keep in mind here, as I've mentioned to @ssu also, is that avoiding war is a good in its own right. Resisting the drive of arms dealers and bankers to make money out of misery is also a good in its own right. And, for those of us on the left, fighting against corporate hegemony in general is a good in its own right. That means that arguments in favour of such strategies only need to be plausible for it to be justified to hold them. We only need show they're worth a try.
Contrariwise, arguments in favour of war, or that favour corporate profiteering do not have moral ends in their own right. To argue in favour of such ends one must argue that we (unfortunately) must adopt such strategies to avoid worse outcomes.
That means counterarguments to each position are different.
To argue against the former one must show it is not even possible to hold such a view. That one is (regrettably) compelled by the evidence to reject it.
To argue against the latter, however, one only need show that a plausible alternative exists, that we are not compelled by the evidence to reluctantly accept war, we have another route to try.
Bollocks.
You said...
Quoting Olivier5
That's just bald assertion with neither evidence nor argument provided.
And...
Quoting Olivier5
Again, absolutely devoid of either argument or evidence.
And...
Quoting Olivier5
Vague handwaving.
Well, as far as I'm aware you can't even demonstrate your claims relating to the present! :smile:
It is entirely possible that some Ukrainians are "angry" and "fearful", but why bring the "Uighurs" into it, when, per your own admission, you can't demonstrate that there is any prospect for the Ukrainians to "go the way of the Uighurs"?
I shall counter them in kind...
Points 1 and 2 are not debatable; the EU will most probably not be extremely generous with Ukraine, and the Russians could not be persuaded to call it a day sooner than you think. Their forces too are not fast eroding. They could not collapse too. Point 4 is suitable for discussion.
1. "Murder" is a very serious crime that needs to be established by the courts, not by social media activists.
2. An act of murder committed now is NOT evidence of murders committed in the future.
3. A far more likely scenario seems to be that once the military hostilities have ceased, so will the violence against civilians.
Incidentally, here is some interesting news for you:
Russia is winning the economic war - and Putin is no closer to withdrawing troops – The Guardian
No one is willing to bet on that, though.
Mmmkey, and what if Europeans tell themselves to do what the US tells them to do?
Quoting Streetlight
Oh I see, in your personal idiom, "Nazi" are all Ukrainians who support Zelensky's choice to resist Russian interference/invasion b/c they want to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Out of curiosity, are the Russians Nazi too for bombing, killing, raping their Ukrainian "brothers" and "sisters", and their land-grabbing in the name of the ethnic Russians and the glory of Holy Russia? Do you also support the racial/racist theory of the rightful owners by any chance?
Stupid question.
Quoting neomac
No, Nazis are literally Nazis, I don't need to redefine terms so as get away with defending Nazis.
The reason why the US is hegemonic and can persuade or impose their will on others is exactly because the US has the economic/military means, positive or negative incentives, to get what they want. And Russians and Chinese regional powers aspiring to challenge the dominant American power want simply to replace it in part or totally to exercise their hegemonic power. The problem is that they are authoritarian regimes and don't like soft-power as much as hard-power. If you prefer to live under their hegemony, I don't.
And as long as Europe is not strong enough to assert itself as a geopolitical power at the level of the other contenders, they have to pick their side according to their interests. And listen carefully what American likes or dislikes to not run in greater troubles for their own interest.
But I'm sure you have a solution to fix the World right?
Quoting Streetlight
Are the Russians Nazi too for bombing, killing, raping their Ukrainian "brothers" and "sisters", and their land-grabbing in the name of the ethnic Russians and the glory of Holy Russia? Is the Russification of the Donbas and Crimea Nazi enough to you?
Yes, and only a Russian court. I bet the civilians in Bucha quite possibly resisted to some degree against their liberators and, well, what do you expect a group of soldiers to do? This is a war against fascism. How dare the West profane the reputation of such a professional and well-trained military without due process. We can't just assume guilt here. Maybe the civilians tied up, bound, and killed themselves. I wish stupid westerners would stop jumping to conclusions.
Ah yes, the ol' "this genocidal state of affairs is immutable and my genocidal team is better than their genocidal team so there". And only someone who is living under a rock or has had their head bashed in by that self-same rock can imagine that American power is in any way 'softer' than the 'authoritarian regimes' it is otherwise indistinguishable from. No other country on Earth has as much blood on its hands as the US; no other country on Earth even belongs to the same order of death-dealing magnitude.
Quoting neomac
Russians are clearly not Nazis, they are simply capitalists doing what capitalist nations always do - rape, plunder, and kill.
I never said that "no crimes were committed". And I never said "only a Russian court" can establish a war crime.
War crimes do happen, on both sides. It still doesn't amount to proof that Ukrainians are in danger of "going the way of the Uighurs".
The way I see it, the Russians haven't got the manpower to keep the whole of Ukraine permanently occupied, especially when the West keeps arming the Ukrainians. They may be able to hold areas that are Russian-speaking or ethnic-Russian. But (a) that's a different matter and (b) it's got nothing to do with "Uighurs".
Right. So, you're reducing the discussion to "betting", "guessing", extrapolating, speculating, and name-calling.
All you need to do now is post some pics to "prove" that your guesses are "true", and you'll be indistinguishable from @ssu .... :smile:
We are talking of what might happen in the future, if Russia grabs a large swath of new Ukrainian territories. The question is: How will the civilian population in those territories be treated by the occupying troops?
My answer is: the actual, documented behavior of said occupying troops in Bucha and hundreds other places is indicative of what will happen in such a scenario. The Russians will be faced by sporadic acts of resistance and will torture and kill random civilians by the thousands to try and get back at the resistance. That has been the pattern they followed so far.
It will far worse than Palestine.
You argued that their behavior will certainly change after a peace deal is signed... So you can predict the future with absolute certainty? No, you can't. In fact you know damn that I am right and that the atrocities will most probably continue, barely abated. But you don't let these atrocities bother you. You set them aside as 'unproven'. Just like the Holocaust is 'unproven' to some.
As there were by Ukrainian forces in Donbas before the invasion. So shall we let neither side have it?
Quoting Olivier5
Good. So list the atrocities in occupied Crimea which give you cause to believe a Russian occupied territory will be worse than a Ukraine occupied one. Compare those to the ones reported in Ukraine occupied Donbas and explain how you arrive at the conclusion that Russian occupied Donbas will be so much worse that it is worth thousands of lives to avoid it.
We already have an example of a Russian occupied territory of Ukraine. Why are you avoiding using it to make your judgements?
And:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/09/the-imfs-new-cold-war-loan-to-ukraine/
Anyone who think the US will treat Ukraine with 'a light touch' is completely out of their god damned mind. They will use this war to utterly fuck Ukraine in no different a way than the current Russian rape of the country, itself sponsored by American manouvering.
American power didn't bomb, kill, rape, loot, land-grab Europeans to have them support Ukraine.
Tell me your solution to fix the World, messiah.
Quoting Streetlight
OK, bombing, killing, raping, looting, land-grabbing, oppressing minorities (like the Crimean Tatars) for nationalistic reasons is not Nazi to you. What else is required to be Nazi then?
No, they just enabled and continue to prolong a devastating war which is killing masses of Ukrainians day by day all the better than they can decimate Ukraine on their own terms at the end of it.
Quoting neomac
Are you a stupid person? Because this is a stupid person question. Or is this just another deflection from the fact that you literally argued in defense of Nazis?
I'm still waiting for your recipe to fix the World, holy messiah.
Quoting Streetlight
Show me how phenomenally smart you are by giving me your definition of "Nazi": bombing, killing, raping, looting, land-grabbing, oppressing minorities (like the Crimean Tatars) for nationalistic reasons is not Nazi. What else then?
Mine was a general consideration to clarify how I would distinguish rational and irrational persuasion. There is no method that aggregates all the methods.
Quoting Isaac
Whenever peers and experts disagree with me, I should examine how rational their arguments are to rationally persuade myself that they have equal or more plausible reasons to claim e.g. that Russia is not a threat to the West. Without knowing where exactly we disagree and for what reasons, giving up on my beliefs as I rationally processed them would be a fallacious submission to peer and expert pressure, unless I have reasons to trust other people’s opinions more than mine in the given circumstances for specific claims because “they know better”. And this trust can be again more or less rational.
Quoting Isaac
If there are two claims that I find both defensible after rational examination, I would find more rational to suspend my judgement.
Quoting Isaac
That would be a false dichotomy: I’m neither arguing nor conceding. All options are open: either they are smarter than I am, or I’m smarter than they are, or we are equally smart but we fail to understand each other for non-pertinent reasons or we are all stupid but everyone in their own way .
Besides if I were to consider how popular is the option I disagree with, I would consider also how popular is the option I agree with.
So the answer is yes then. OK, good to know.
I don't know, you didn't answer my question. Are you smart enough to remember what it is? I'm still waiting for your answer, holy messiah.
So, because the Holocaust is "unproven" to some, this somehow "proves" that Russia is going to exterminate the Ukrainians??? :rofl:
As far as I'm aware, you admitted to be unable to predict or demonstrate the future:
Quoting Olivier5
Basically, it seems that you're trying to sell us your conjectures and speculations as "fact".
My point was that I'm against world government and that many leading personalities see the UN as a form of world government:
World government - Wikipedia
Indeed, the UN does make policies that affect all its members, much as a government does.
It’s got a General Assembly, Security Council, World Court, World Bank, World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, etc.
And it closely cooperates with NATO, the world's largest military organization and growing!
Relations with the United Nations - NATO
Natoism is definitely a form of Nazism as well as being a manifestation of US imperialism.
American imperialism - Wikipedia
That’s why I think smaller powers like Europe, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Africa, should be supported in their struggle against US hegemony, neocolonialism, and imperialism.
And you still haven't demonstrated that Crimea should be given to Ukraine or America ....
Oh honey, you don't seem to know the meanings of words. I'm not comparing or making an analogy to Nazis. I'm talking about actual Nazis in Ukraine. Y'know. The ones being showered in American weapons.
Nice try through, A+ for trying to sound minimally intelligent.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/azovreplist.html
Wonder which of our resident Nazi sympathizers will chime in to leap to their defense.
I'm just saying -
Quoting neomac
As well as the absurd effort to smear the lines so that "well aren't the Russians Nazis too hmmm???". Like, yeah, the Russians are genocidal, but this doesn't give people a free pass to downplay and deflect Nazis because they want to score a point. Disagreement is one thing but this stuff above is something else.
Nope. What I am saying is that we cannot assume that the killings will stop or that the population will be well treated in areas under Russian control, after the signature of a putative peace treaty recognizing such control. Therefore the Ukrainian leadership ought to think twice before abandoning their claim on any territory, because that would quite possibly mean committing to hell the people living there -- in such uncertainty, can they bet on the Russians playing nice?
I was joking.
So you aggregate the methods how? Randomly?
Quoting neomac
Fascinating. So how do you do that?
Quoting neomac
How?
Quoting neomac
Really? So with your opinion here you find all alternative opinions, from scores of military and foreign policy experts...all of them...indefensible and irrational. Your rational skills are so amazing that you outsmart all these experts?
Quoting neomac
Yet you've ignored the argument about underdetermination. Why is that?
Quoting Apollodorus
You don't apparently see it yourself, Apollodorus.
But the truth is that many Russians think just like you. And you just add even smilies to it. If there's an example of modern jingoism that supports Putins actions and looks down upon other nations, it's the above kind of messaging. Annexations are Ok, at least for Russia in this case.
One should remember that not all Russians think like this. Many do oppose the war and many have left the totalitarian state, but those are few. They shouldn't be forgotten, but neither your kind. And in Russia there are many who believe that Russia has this destiny, and of course the imperialism is veiled in the defense of "Fortress Russia".
And to refer that the Turks, Chinese and many others have done similarly with the US turning a blind eye to it doesn't refute the fact at all. Russia is our neighbor, not China or Turkey.
So you're saying the default position is to continue war unless there's proof one ought to stop.
I can't see how that makes any moral sense.
I'd say one ought to avoid war unless one is overwhelmed by evidence that it is necessary. It seems really callous to say one ought to continue (or worse, pursue) war unless one is overwhelmed by evidence that one should stop.
:up: The cessation of war is a good in itself. You don't play with lives - especially from the comfort of some cosy swivel chair - because one wants to 'play the odds'. One argues on the side of the cessation of war, absolutely. Anything else comes later.
Indeed. Put another way: if one were to really hate Ukrainians, what would be the best course of action? Do the opposite of that. I'd like to think that continual bombing and killing is worse than negotiated settlement(s).
So if you're someone who hates Ukrainians (and thus "Ukraine" in the abstract), the best route is to avoid negotiations. This will all but guarantee the conflict continues.
So it's not that those who advocate for "standing up to a bully," punishing the bad guy, protecting freedom around the world, etc. etc. (all of which are pretty easy to say when your own life isn't on the line) don't care about Ukrainians -- maybe they do. It's just interesting that the results are the same, regardless of intention: dead people, continuous warfare, escalation of nuclear fallout, etc.
When you rule with fear, you don't have to know international politics or what will happen if you start a war. What you have to know is how to frighten people into submission. And as an assassin and member of many coups, Saddam was perfect in the role of violently acquiring and holding on to power. And yes, Saddam also understood the importance of social programs, that could be done with the new oil money. It's not about being a moron, it's about not understanding what kind of trouble you will get into with starting wars. Who's going to argue against you?
Quoting Benkei
Those who start wars usually do make stupid decisions.
In the six weeks of aerial attacks in 1991, US planes (with minor assistance from other NATO powers) destroyed more than 90 percent of Iraq’s electrical capacity, and much of its telecommunication systems including television and radio stations, along with its flood control, irrigation, sewage treatment, water purification, and hydroelectric systems. Domestic herds and poultry farms suffered heavy losses. US planes burned grain fields with incendiary bombs and hit hundreds of schools, hospitals, rail stations, bus stations, air raid shelters, mosques, and historic sites. Factories that produced textiles, cement, petrochemicals, and phosphate were hit repeatedly. So were the refineries, pipelines, and storage tanks of Iraq’s oil industry. Some 200,000 Iraqi civilians and soldiers were killed in those six weeks.
Nearly all the aerial attackers employed laser-guided depleted-uranium missiles, leaving hundreds of tons of radioactive matter spread over much of the country, leading to tens of thousands of more deaths in the following years, including many from what normally would be treatable and curable illnesses. Twelve years later, Bush Jr. invaded Iraq and wreaked further death and destruction upon that country.[/quote]
Saddam couldn't have murdered as many Iraqis as the Americans did if he tried - let alone plunged the entire country into a futureless black hole. But I guess they 'deserved it', because they made "stupid decisions". Saddam was a murderous, autocratic fuck. And the US outdid him, over and over and over.
A note of comparison too. It's been about 14 weeks since the war in Ukraine began, and the number of Ukrainian deaths is estimated at about 4000+ or so with another 5000+ injured. Now read again the end of the second paragraph above.
There is no more genocidal state on the planet than the USofA. Speaking of, don't anyone look up the upper-bound death rate for the 'war on terror'. 'Another holocaust' would not be a wrong description.
"Ought to", "possibly", "they can bet", "hell" ....
That's exactly what I'm saying, you're reducing the discussion to conjecture, speculation, exaggeration, and empty rhetoric.
Whether or not the Ukrainian leadership abandon their claim on any territory is, of course, a matter for the Ukrainian leadership. I have no influence on them and neither do you.
The fact still remains that were it not for NATO's insistence on a spurious "right" to infinite expansion regardless of consequences, this conflict wouldn't have happened. So, American imperialism does have its share of blame.
Quoting ssu
I "don't see" what exactly???
[b]1. Crimea was taken from Russia and given to Ukraine in 1954.
2. Crimea was taken from Ukraine and given back to Russia in 2014.
3. It follows that the original borders were restored. [/b]
You should welcome that if, as you claim, you're for permanent borders. And for the same reason you should also insist on the borders of Tibet, Cyprus, etc. to be restored!
As for your statement that "Russia is Finland's neighbor, not China or Turkey", it only demonstrates that you don't really care about others unless it affects you personally. And yet you're pretending to have some God-given monopoly on the moral high ground here .... :grin:
I think that those that Saddam killed are quite accurately estimated and studied. Of course at first Saddam was supported by the US when he attacked Iran.
Which just makes my point how stupid it is to start wars first against your neighbors... and then against your other neighbor that is backed by the US.
Those that died of other reason than Saddam in Iraq is the more acute question. The real question is how much did the UN sanctions kill? US Iraqi policy in the long term is one skeleton in the closet for the US.
I'm against wars, so I guess I'm for present borders to be upheld.
Restoring borders, meaning moving borders, is contrary to the idea of permanent borders.
Quoting Apollodorus
Given back? When did the Ukrainians give back Crimea?
Now I'll use your most often rofl-meme: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
I didn't say the Ukrainians gave back Crimea, I said "it was given back". So, you can laugh at yourself!
Meantime, you can learn how to read!
If you're against borders being moved, you should be against Crimea's borders being moved in 1954 in the first place.
Plus, if Russia gave Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, it can take it back in 2014. In doing so, it merely takes back what belonged to it! :rofl:
What else do YOU have, when talking of future events? You got some crypto-marxist crystal ball?
Now Putin is working the same logic and hopes for a better return. The ever elusive 'facts on the ground moves forward like the mechanical lure in a Greyhound race.
The fact that America and its NATO Empire are an imperialist, expansionist entity that has caused this conflict.
American Imperialism - Wikipedia
Well, the censorship is so extreme that you can't. Almost nobody knows, unless they go to something like a marginal Libertarian website that happens to be telling the truth. It's crazy. Not only that, if you bring it up -- just talk about it -- you're immediately vilified: "Putin supporter," "commie rat," you want appeasement, you want to sell out, and so on. It's pretty astonishing.
--Chomsky
We do not aggregate methods with some super-method. We simply apply some epistemic procedures as a function of our epistemic needs, means and circumstances. If we do some laboratory research to publish a scientific paper, we take some measurements, apply some formula to obtain some stats or generate some plots, or program a computer to do that for us. If we are in a forum debating things we can link sources, provide arguments , offer definitions. If we play chess, we will try to figure out our next moves vs our adversary's moves and build a decision tree for our strategy, etc.
Quoting Isaac
I try to identify the logic structure of the argument, so e.g. in case of a deduction premise and conclusion , to check if it's logically valid. I try to identify the concepts used, to be sure I understand what is claimed and if there are informal fallacies or ambiguities that compromise the argument. Then I try to see what evidences there are to support the premises, if they are empirical claims or theoretical claims. I can consider different possible formulation of the same argument or compare this argument on a given field to other similar arguments in other different fields, to make sure there aren't hidden assumptions that I missed. And I can check how other people have scrutinized the argument, etc.
Quoting Isaac
I don't even know what opinions you are talking about how can I possibly believe they all are indefensible and irrational?! Besides in condition of uncertainty opposing views may appear more likely rationally defensible. But again, to me, the point is not to assess people or opinions, but to assess actual arguments, so e.g. what are the actual arguments supporting the claim that Russia is not a security threat to Western countries, or undermining the claim that Russia is a security threat to Western countries? If I have to be rationally persuaded, I have to rationally examine the available arguments on their own merits. If I'm not up to this task for whatever reason then I could try other strategies.
Quoting Isaac
Because I'm not sure how you understand it or intend to apply it. In what sense do the facts that I listed underdetermine the theory (?) that Russia is a security concern for the West?
That's what I'm saying. It's NATO's caca.
Why on Earth? It wasn't an international border.
Once states break away and get their independence, it's different. But what would you care.
Yes. One need not have to be put in the default position of *having* to say, "Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a major crime.", every time one want to make a point about how poorly the West in handling this situation.
This level of discourse is pretty crazy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_imperialism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_imperialism#Contemporary_Russian_imperialism
https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/russian-imperial-movement
https://jamestown.org/program/putins-crimea-speech-a-manifesto-of-greater-russia-irredentism/
Most of the intelligent posters here have linked sources, provided arguments and offered definitions. It doesn't seem to have been sufficient.
Quoting neomac
OK, so take me through the process with "Russia is a security threat to Western countries". We should have a list of premises which logically entail that conclusion. So what is that list?
Quoting neomac
You don't need to know what those opinions are for my claim "you find all alternative opinions, from scores of military and foreign policy experts...all of them...indefensible and irrational" to apply, you only need know they exist. If a single expert disagrees with you then (according to your principle) it must be because he is irrational, because you are better than him as rational analysis. This follows from...
1. If there are two claims that I find both defensible after rational examination, I would find more rational to suspend my judgement. — neomac
and
2. You have not suspended judgement hereon the proposition in question (nor have you done so on many other related propositions in this thread)
The only alternative I can think of is that you think every expert in the world agrees with you. Is that what you think? Otherwise, the mere existence of experts who disagree with you should cause you to suspend your judgement simply on the charitable assumption that they're not idiots because you'd automatically assume their position to be at least rational.
Quoting neomac
Of course it's about people. You assess argument A to be irrational, I assess it to be rational. No further assessment of A is going to resolve that difference, we've (for the sake of argument) extracted all the propositions and evidences within argument A one-by-one and I still find it rational, you still find it irrational. There's simply nowhere left to go other than decide if your judgement or mine is the better.
Quoting neomac
I can't find such facts as a list (not so as to be sure that I'm referring to the facts you're wanting me to refer to). I don't think that matters though. It's quite a general principle that facts underdetermine theories, I don't think it's application here would be any different to the general case.
It is sufficient for people posting in good will. But nothing is easier to fake than misunderstanding.
I see. And how do you determine if a post is 'in good will'?
Uh huh. And how do you determine if that which is being responded to has been 'misrepresented'?
God, the biggest caca.
Here's a list, that could be put far more... It doesn't include the biggest offenses (possible coups etc) as this is only at Western countries and basically at the Nordic and Baltic countries. So with Ukraine and in some other places (like the Balkans etc.) Russian operations have far been more aggressive. But you asked specifically about Western countries.
- Russia has made extensive hybrid attacks and implied pressure to Finland, quite well reported by ambassador Rene Nyberg here: Form Hybrid Operations and the Importance of Resilience: Lessons From Recent Finnish History (Carniege endowment for international Peace, author René Nyberg)
- Russia makes threats to it's neighboring countries and assume they have a say in the security policy of Western countries. (See here)
- Russia has made cyber attacks towards Western countries, starting with Estonia in 2007 (see here) Last one's have happened here a month ago or so.
- Russia has organized refugee migrations into Northern Finland and Norway as a show-of-force that they could use this. (Explained in the Nyberg article)
- Russia kidnapped Estonian security officials inside Estonia and then traded these for their own spies. (See here)
- In Russian TV possible invasion of Swedish Island of Gotland is openly discussed (among attacking the Baltic States) See here
- Russia has made very often air space violations of Baltic States and Finland and Sweden.
And needles to say, Russia has invaded it's neighbors and annexed territory from them, which obviously causes concern to other neighboring countries.
(And I guess the response I'll get to this is a list what the US has done to Third World countries. Because that I guess makes all above totally OK behavior.)
Uh huh. So if we look back at all your posts we'll find only exact quotes, yes? No rephrasings? Or is it OK when you do it, but risky for others?
Quoting Olivier5
Likewise, we'll find no dissent attached to any of your rephrasings? Everyone agreed that your rephrasings were accurate representations of the original proposition?
Is that your claim? Or are we all guilty of misrepresentation, and thus none of us posting in 'good will'?
Or, are we just seeing yet another boring example of your inability to tell the difference between the way things seem to you, and the way things actually are.
That would make sense as a preemptive defense if we were arguing about whether such behaviour was 'OK'.
But since everyone with a level of analysis above that of a five year old already agrees that neither set of actions are 'OK', then it misses its mark by miles.
The 'OK'ness of Russia's actions are neither here nor there. We're not their judge, we're not sitting at the pearly gates deciding whether to let them in.
The question is what it is 'OK' to do about those actions.
This is where the behaviour of the US becomes relevant. If the US behaves similarly but we do not act to defend against them, then doing so to defend against Russia is hypocritical. Hypocrisy is, at the very least, cause for concern.
As to your claims.
The issues, with regard to my discussion with@neomac are these...
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
All of these are interpretations. Necessary ones to support a theory. Russia might well have made 'a small number' of hybrid attacks. The threats may have been 'badly reported'. They may not have 'assumed' anything about their role, but rather justifiability concluded it. They may not have used refugees as a show of force, but rather for some other purpose. They may have violated air space quite 'infrequently'.
All of these are possible interpretations, they're not ruled out by the empirical facts (there's no empirical fact, for example, about how often is 'very often'). As such the facts underdetermine the theory. One could perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude they are insufficient to warrant an assumption that Russia represents a security threat to Europe. And indeed, many have.
Any country with an army has a non-zero chance of raising a security issue with a European country. No country is 100% going to invade. So whatever the evidence, we need to make a decision about what level of probability is going to constitute, for us, a 'security threat'. That decision cannot be made on the basis of any empirical data. It's a purely political decision driven entirely by one's ideological commitments.
My claim is that some are more guilty than others, and that you in particular are a serial willful misunderstander. You do it all the time.
There was one case recently where one of my rephrasing was challenged, by no other than the thread creator @Manuel. I agreed that I was caricatural and changed my rephrasing to something we both could agree on. You can see that conversation here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/703634
Ah, as I suspected. So how much more guilty constitutes a lack of 'good will'? 10% more? 15%? How have you measured 'more guilty'? Do you have those figures to hand? Some kind of tally, I presume?
Because otherwise we'd have to accept that it merely seems to you as if I do it more often than you. It merely seems to you as if the difference in frequency is sufficient to warrant the conclusion about 'good will'
Yet, the argument was that...
Quoting Olivier5
The 'it' here being the determination of rational from irrational arguments. Are you saying that such determination is dependent on the way things seem to you to be?
When it is almost systematic, ie when the person almost never gets it right, and yet uses this trick a lot.
EDIT: Also when the deformation, the bias, is always negative, evidently intended to grossly disfigure and hence ridicule the other's opinion. A person in good will -- if hard of hearing or a poor English speaker -- would get things wrong often but randomly, both in a positive and negative direction. A person arguing in bad will is always slanted towards the negative.
Finally, when it's not just you, but several other posters have repeatedly complained about the bad will behavior, it lends a degree of objectivity to it.
Well that's just replaced one set of completely subjective judgements with another. I asked how much 'more guilty' constitutes too much more and you give me "almost", and "a lot". How near to systematic is 'almost' and how often is 'a lot'?
To what end? You still have not provided anything other than subjective judgements about what constitutes "almost", and "a lot".
What if I agree with you on principle, but disagree that I do it 'a lot', that in fact, the number of times I do it is only 'a few'?
Are you suggesting there's some empirical fact about how many times constitutes 'a lot'?
Not to mention the fact that you have not actually counted the occasions at all bug are instead relying entirely on your subjective impression of the frequency.
Yes, I do. Human behavior can be studied objectively. You of all people should know that.
OK. What's the number then?
A border doesn't need to be "international" to be a border. And the consequences of changing an original border must be taken into account, otherwise it can lead to conflicts like the one we now see in Ukraine!
The fact remains that borders either change or they don’t. History shows that they do.
Therefore, my position is that borders can and should be changed as and when demanded by Justice and according to the principle that every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners.
In contrast, if you are “against changing present borders” as you claim, then,
1. You should be AGAINST:
Russian-held Crimea being given to Ukraine.
Turkey changing Syria’s borders.
NATO expanding its borders, etc.
And
2. You should be FOR:
China keeping Tibet.
Turkey keeping Cyprus.
The Kurds never having their own state, etc.
Moreover, given that a lot of borders have been drawn as a result of invasion and occupation, by being against changing borders you are against unjust invasion and occupation being redressed, i.e., you're against Justice.
Ergo, your stance is too inconsistent and self-contradictory to add up.
Quoting Manuel
By the same token, one should not be put in the default position of *having* to say "Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a major crime", if it turns out that the invasion was motivated by legitimate security concerns and, therefore, not necessarily a crime, major or otherwise ....
About the exact number that constitutes 'too often'? I'll ask around, but I don't recall any papers on the subject.
Why so clandestine? If you already know the number, why aren't you just telling me, it seems like an important thing to know.
Then they are not enemies to begin with, so your point is moot.
And Western countries have never respected Russia to begin with.
A country that actively seeks membership in not one but two organizations that will significantly shape the internal and external policies and actions of said country is clearly not interested in self-governance.
People have been trying to cover up their narcissism, hatred, contempt, lack of consideration in many ways, and this emphasis on "self-governance" is the way that is in fashion now.
This is nonsense.
There is no such thing as "seeing another as an enemy(in nice and harmless ways)".
Someone isn't your enemy because you call them so. But if you insist in doing so, and you take preemptive action, the other party is justified to begin to consider you the enemy (and take according action).
What you're describing here is the preference for a narcissistic one-way relationship where one party gets to define all the terms of engagement, and the other party is supposed to comply. The other party has no say. They are supposed to think of themselves the way the first party demands.
Are you a Christian?
Newsweek
They still have oil and coal. I guess the tsar/oligarchs system will just reset?
I meant if he died, Russia would probably go back to what they had before the war. I don't think anyone will have a grudge, except Ukraine, which will never trust Russia again.
I hadn't thought of that. Jamie Dimon has said the US is headed for an economic "hurricane", so we may all be hurting shortly.
Russia is a completely different case - they don't manufacture anything. They sell oil & gas and buy everything they need. So being unable to sell those completely wipes out all other parts of the economy, as they just have no money to buy stuff. In the 80s there was at least some manufacturing, but now there is none.
They don't export a lot of manufacturered goods, but they do a fair amount of manufacturing.
Britannica
Even if they are building something, it heavily relies on foreign components. Like the Kamaz trucks having a US build engines and German transmissions. Or their Sukhoi Super-Jet having French engines and US avionics, etc. They can get some parts from the grey market, but the final product still won't be exportable.
You mean this sanction...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/703573
Wheat: negotiations on the unblocking of Ukrainian ports are on track
The UN and Turkey will be the intermediaries in technical negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv to “free” Ukrainian cereals and at the same time open access for Russian cargo ships to European ports.
As the threat of a famine that could strike millions of people around the world grows, UN Secretary General António Guterres announced progress in negotiations on unblocking the export of Ukrainian wheat, as well as than on the removal of obstacles to access to Russian food resources and fertilizers on world markets, reports the Russian business daily Kommersant.
“We're making good progress, but we haven't seen any results yet. These are very complex issues and the interdependency of all their elements makes the negotiations particularly difficult”, he explained on June 1, while assuring that he was “fully confident” .
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths and UN Conference on Trade and Development Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan are discussing a comprehensive deal that includes “the secure export of grain by sea and access to Russian products and fertilizers on world markets, particularly in developing countries”. Rebeca Grynspan has already traveled to Moscow on May 30, then directly to Washington the next day.
Seventy ships from 16 countries blocked
Kiev claims that it is "the blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea and the takeover of the Azov coastline by Russia that prevent Ukraine from exporting 22 million tonnes of grain", recalls the Russian title. Moscow rejects these accusations and points out that the Russian military regularly tries to open “maritime corridors” to let cargo ships out.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 70 ships from 16 countries are currently docked in the ports of Kherson , Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhny. “The risk of fire from Ukrainian forces and the presence of a large quantity of mines in the surrounding waters do not allow the ships to exit safely on the high seas”, affirms the Russian authority.
The project is to create a group of contacts to organize the exit of wheat cargoes from Ukrainian ports. The intermediaries in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will be the UN and Turkey .
Lavrov will be in Ankara on June 8
“Our Turkish colleagues will take part in the work of demining the ports… And they will try to find agreements so that these operations are not an opportunity for Ukraine to regroup its forces and inflict damage on Russia”, explained Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan on June 1. The Turkish President then conveyed this agreement between Moscow and Ankara to Volodymyr Zelensky.
In the Turkish capital, it is estimated that the main issues can be settled within two weeks, knowing that, in the meantime, on June 8, Sergei Lavrov will visit Ankara.
“Ukraine does not want to see Russian ships in the port of Odessa, while Russia refuses the arrival in this port of foreign ships likely to bring weapons to Ukraine. We must therefore agree on a resolution which grants guarantees to both parties”, explained Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
However, the situation will not be resolved as long as the sanctions against Russian cargo ships, which are turned away from European ports, are maintained. Indeed, if Russian wheat does not fall under the scope of international sanctions, this is not the case for the logistics and financial chains linked to the delivery of cereals on world markets, Sergei Lavrov recalled.
At issue are 37 million tonnes of production for the current season, and 50 million for the next, informs Kommersant. Turkey, Egypt , Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan are the main importers of Russian wheat.
According to the daily, the hope of a positive outcome to this initiative is reinforced by the fact that Washington has approved Rebeca Grynspan's move to Russia, then to Washington. “We hope this will give a boost to companies that are currently refraining from delivering Russian grain and fertilizers,” said the United States' United States representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
On May 31, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel , also declared that the European Union and the United Nations were working to open other routes for the export of Ukrainian wheat, in particular through the territory of Belarus and of the Baltic countries.
Komersant article
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5381821?from=main
I don't think many countries make their goods all the way up from raw materials. Maybe China does?
But I get your point. Manufacturerung isn't their forte, but they do meet a lot of their own needs through their own industries.
We'll see how that works out in the upcoming month. )
Perhaps letting at least some grain ships through would be a way for Russia to signal that it's open for some diplomatic approaches to end the war. In a way, it could be a start to ease the tensions.
This is where for example the UN could be handy tool.
You mean more of a way than just directly saying it?
It's laughable the way you try and present this as if we're all waiting with baited breath for Russia to come to the negotiating table when it's been present there for practically the entire invasion.
What's missing is any commitment from the US, without which negotiations will be toothless (seeing as they're directly bankrolling the whole war and it's now openly admitted that it's in a proxy war with Russia)
And now the Ukrainians themselves...
...but lovely to watch you twist the US and Ukraine's refusal to negotiate into a narrative where we're all supposed to be patiently waiting for those recalcitrant Ruskies to join the table while the noble and patient West wring their hands in beneficent concern.
That's why the world needs to make sure NATO doesn't get any bigger. :grin:
Quoting baker
I think that pretty much describes the situation. What is lacking from America’s NWO, which isn’t surprising given that America inherited it from the British Empire, is the concept of justice.
The way I see it, justice a.k.a. righteousness is the most important of cardinal virtues and the very foundation on which classical philosophy was built.
The importance of justice was also recognized by Christian philosophy, even though not always correctly implemented. Unfortunately, the pseudo-philosophies that have become dominant in later times (e.g.,
Imperialism, Transatlanticism, Natoism, Globalism, etc.) have tended to neglect this central concept of Western thought, and I think this has contributed to many of the problems the world is struggling, and likely to continue to struggle with, for the foreseeable future.
Though some like to babble about the “Russian Empire”, the generally accepted fact is that the dominant power in the world today is America, not Russia, and that America is a society in which material profit plays a central role.
This is reflected in the many international organizations that America has established as instruments of its foreign policy, such the UN, NATO, and the EU, all of which were created for the purpose of maintaining not justice, but “international peace and security” conducive to America “doing business” unhindered.
In spite of “peace” being the purported aim of America’s world order, it goes without saying that peace without justice isn’t true peace. Certainly, a world order that allows some states (China, Turkey) to grab other nations’ territory while some nations (Kurds) aren’t even allowed to have a state of their own, isn’t a just order. And, as they say, “no justice, no peace”.
IMO it isn’t enough to acknowledge the hypocrisy of America and its world order, we need to indict and combat its blatant injustice. Focusing exclusively on Russia’s alleged “crimes” amounts to deliberately ignoring the bigger crimes committed by America and its allies or client-states.
From what I see, older generations who still think that Russia is the Soviet Union and Germany the Third Reich, and who seem to be over-represented here, tend to have an outdated mindset that simply ignores some very important changes taking place in the world. If we look at China, India, Latin America, Africa, there is a growing tendency while embracing modern technology and science, to pay more attention to local history and culture and incorporate them into one’s national identity.
India, for example, has taken huge steps toward shaking off the shackles of colonialism, both European and Muslim (Arab and Mughal), and this seems to have contributed to a cultural and religious revival that acts as a counterweight to American hegemony.
If Europeans want to survive into the next decades and centuries, they too will have to liberate themselves from American colonialism and re-join the international community as a continent of free nations.
As I said, the real solution is to have free and independent countries and continents. America wants to “keep Russia out of Europe”. But this is absurd as Russia is, and has always been, in Europe. I’m all for keeping Russia out of Western Europe, but then America should stay out of Europe, too.
The problem is that America is increasingly treating Europe as its colonial possession. It is exporting to Europe not only American pseudo-culture mainly consisting of guns, drugs, and psycho music genres, but Biden now plans to ship Latin American immigrants to Europe exactly like England used to ship Africans to its colonies!
On the whole, America seems to be monopolizing the very definition of culture, democracy, politics, international relations, and by the looks of it, even philosophy. In a world that is increasingly fake – from fake news to fake Instagram pictures - fake Europeans fail to see any problem with American hegemony and so do their American counterparts and role models. And this is why no meaningful dialogue or discussion is possible ….
Of course they do:
Russian manufacturing activity returns to growth in May - PMI | Reuters
It's a good idea to check the facts before trusting the "experts" here. :smile:
Incidentally, chances are Russia will continue to find buyers for some of its energy exports and if it is forced to start manufacturing products for its own domestic needs, it can easily become largely self-sufficient (which is actually a good thing for its economy) and outlive the sanctions by many years.
The decisive factor in the conflict isn't the sanctions but how the military situation develops.
Not only China. India and other large economies are watching what's happening to Russia. They're learning from Russia's experience and making sure they don't find themselves in the same position of vulnerability to the West in the future.
So, America's position may not end up being quite as strong as officially presumed, in the long-term.
But the biggest loser will be Europe, Germany in particular, which is Europe's largest economy. I for one don’t see how Europeans can benefit from becoming dependent on oil and gas from places that may be more expensive, less stable, and are run by nasty regimes, like Saudi Arabia.
Putin looks :worry:
:snicker:
Yes. Remember ping pong diplomacy?
What's been present practically the entire invasion has been the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. But of course that doesn't matter for the Russian apologists.Why, the Russian have only made reasonable proposals to the Ukrainian Nazis. And their assault in Donbas is still on the way...
Quoting Isaac
That Biden has said he's not looking for regime change in Russia or that the US is demanding that Ukraine wouldn't use the given weapons systems against Russian proper (meaning Russian territory) is something you think is meaningless. And of course Russia would like to talk just to the US. After all, the country of Ukraine is artificial.
(See here)
You just have toothless arguments, Isaac.
Well, there are already channels between the US and Russia. What should be remembered that Mao's China had had an open war with the US in Korea, even if the Chinese forces were depicted to be "volunteers". I guess there weren't many relations with China before ping pong diplomacy.
And anyway, the US and Russia have done something about unintended accidents or escalations months ago:
Guterres has already tried to get something done with the blockade already last month. It could be a way forward. And I think it would be good that the UN would gain some role in the conflict.
(WSJ, last may)
The fact is that moving Ukrainian food products to the global market through roads and railways won't work. Or works too little.
Again, not sufficient for what, to whom, why? As far as I’m concerned, in this thread, I mainly argued with you, Apollodorus and Streetlight as opponents. And whenever I found your arguments fallacious (straw man, misquotations, contradictions, question begging claims, lack of evidence, blatant lies, etc.) or questionable on factual or explanatory bases, I argued for it. And since I’m mainly interested in reasoning over pertinent arguments on their own merits, more than in resulting opinion polls and intelligence contests, I don’t take arguments ad personam, [i]ad populum[/I], [i]ab auctoritate[/I], as well as sarcasm and insults, as ways to rationally assess arguments on their own merits.
Quoting Isaac
Well, I didn't offer an argument in the form of a logic deduction (even though one could put it in that form too I guess), I limited myself to list some evidences that support my claim about Russian foreign politics [1] and assessed its reliability [2].
Quoting Isaac
No it doesn’t follow.
First, my principle concerns claims and not intellectual skill assessments.
Second, from a strictly logical point of view, if I didn’t suspend my judgement, then I didn’t find two claims equally defensible after rational examination, but the implication doesn’t establish that, in case of divergence between my claims and others’, my claims are the more rational or rationally defensible. Indeed if my opponent’s claims fall within his sphere of competence more than mine, his claims will likely prove to be more rational than mine.
Third, the principle applies to claims that I could actually examine on their own merits, so the mere existence of some expert’s claims divergent from mine is not enough to apply that principle.
Moreover, if your argument is referring to my comments about Mearsheimer’s or Kissinger’s claims on the NATO’s expansion, then it’s also equivocal: sure, I can charitably assume that Mearsheimer and Kissinger are more reliable than I am in their domain of expertise (yet not necessarily more than other experts in the same or related area of expertise who oppose their views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhgWLmd7mCo). However, when it’s matter of evaluating and questioning the moral assumptions or implications of their claims, as I did, I don’t have any reason to take them to be more moral expert than I am.
Quoting Isaac
All I’m saying is that I’m here because interested in arguments more than in opinion polls or intelligence contests. Of course this doesn’t prevent me from getting an idea of how popular some opinions are or how rational other participants to this forum or thread are, nor it prevents me from understanding certain reactions from a more politically engaged point of view, but that’s not what I’m after. That’s all.
Yet, I guess you are after something else, namely the same philosophical point you made in your comment to ssu. Since I find the latter more articulated, here below is my feedback about it.
Quoting Isaac
This part sounds as a sophism for a couple of reasons. First, things can be perceived, represented, or valued differently, yet that doesn’t prevent us from explicating and navigating these differences in more or less rational ways, and define accordingly margins of convergence where cooperation is possible and beneficial. Second, you started talking about possibilities (“possible interpretations”, “could perfectly rationally”), yet you concluded your argument with a fact (“And indeed, many have” concluded that perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude etc.) giving the impression that the possibilities you were talking about were actually the case, but - as far as I’ve read and can recall - that the same facts (e.g. the ones mentioned by ssu) have been looked at and assessed with perfect rationality to conclude something incompatible with ssu's conclusions hasn’t been shown yet.
Quoting Isaac
Not sure about that either. First, I have no idea how one would or could calculate such a probability (an aggregated security threat index per nation), so far I couldn’t even find one single geopolitical expert providing such estimates, not even the ones who were against NATO expansion. So however interesting it might be to investigate this subject further, at first glance it doesn’t strike me as a very promising ground for your argument. Second, since you are talking about “we” and “political decisions” I guess you are referring to democratic political decisions, yet I find quite problematic in terms of effectiveness and efficiency to assess truths via democratic political decisions (unless we are trivially talking about institutional truths like who the national president is). Indeed that’s also why we have experts about security and national defense who do not only collect pertinent empirical data but also assess national security concerns based on those empirical data and independently from any democratic political decision.
[1]
Quoting neomac
[2]
Quoting neomac
So you first imply that Russia are late to the negotiating table, then that no position they might come with is reasonable anyway. If control of anti-Russian far right groups, territorial claims over Donbas are off the table, then what exactly did you expect Russia to bring when you said...
Quoting ssu
..? 'Diplomatically' agree to keep things exactly as they were, retreat from their military positions and walk away?
Quoting ssu
Putin has said he's not looking for regime change in Ukraine. You didn't believe that. Your bias is astounding. Biden says "For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power" and you're willing to ignore that at the drop of a hat to replace it with the 'official line', but Putin mentions something about Ukrainians and Russians being 'one people' some time back and that's enough for you to impute a clear intention to take over the whole country. Your sycophancy over the US is pretty appalling.
Yep. If @ssu couldn't brown nose US power, he wouldn't know how to breathe.
I'm not going to hand-hold you through the argument. If you can't remember where we are, that's your loss. I asked about methods for determining ideas which were wrong, your appealed to 'aggregate methods', I asked what they might be and you said...
Quoting neomac
Now you're saying that is not, in fact sufficient to determine wrong arguments at all, but further ...
Quoting neomac
Except that all of the above are completely subjective, so you've still given nothing other than your judgement as a measure. Arguments are wrong because you think they are. Hence it is not true that...
Quoting neomac
I asked you how you assess claims to be false and you said...
Quoting neomac
Now you're saying you don't. Which is it?
Quoting neomac
It's entirely an 'intelligence contest'. You're relying entirely on the fact the your personal judgement of what is "straw man", what is a "misquotation" what are "contradictions" which are "question begging" which have a "lack of evidence" which are "blatant lies" which claims are "questionable"...all of these are subjective judgements which the people making the claim would obviously disagree with you on. So you are doing nothing more than saying that your judgement over these is better than theirs. An 'intelligence contest'
Quoting neomac
Great. So let's have those methods then. You keep vaguely pointing to the existence of these supposedly 'rational' methods (which I've somehow missed in my academic career thus far - which ought to be of concern to the British education system), yet you're clandestine about the details. Are they secret?
Quoting neomac
It is a fact that many have reached different conclusions. I can't see what your problem is with that. Are you saying that all parties agree on this?
Quoting neomac
...oh you are! Yes, well done. Everyone in the world agrees with ssu on this one, you've nailed it. I'm surprised I didn't read about that one in the newspapers - "Global agreement! First time since 1+1=2"
Quoting neomac
There's no need to calculate it. It's sufficient that it exists. In order for a country to be called 'a security threat' is is simply definitional that their probability of causing harm has to be above some threshold, since it is a fact that no country has a zero probability of causing harm to another and no country has a 100% probability of causing harm to another. As such, it absolutely must be a judgement. Unless you're saying there's some actual number above which it is definitional that a country is a 'security threat'.
The level of servility in those latest remarks of his surprised me even at this stage...
Since when did "Biden says..." become part of any argument about what is actually the case?
Yep. The most rational position to take with regard to Biden's planned, official announcements seems to be to assume every single one of them is a lie. That would simply be more likely based on past experience.
...but then @neomac is currently schooling me on how to think rationally. It turns out to have a lot less to do with methods of thinking and a lot more to with with how far arguments support a neo-liberal agenda. Who'd have thought, eh...
I guess then a follow-up is: therefore...?
Therefore we ought to stop looking at potential solutions presented by one of these 'sides' as if they were beneficent manna from heaven with no downsides.
There's only one issue (beyond the pointless moralising others seem to delight in) and that's whether we lend our support to our own governments (and media). Decisions such as joining NATO, sending weapons, taking part in negotiations, the terms of those negotiations... all involve an assessment of honesty, intent and integrity on both sides. Treating one side as saints and the other as the devil gives an inaccurate assessment of how those decisions will impact the people they are made on behalf of.
No.
What I'm saying is that they are continuing their assault in Ukraine and have not yet made realistic proposals to end the war. What I'm saying is that they have a chance of easing the situation by letting through the blockade "humanitarian shipments" of grain and fertilizer from Ukraine. Now using the UN in this case as the negotiator would be quite beneficial to them: they have veto-power there and their friend China has too. After the bloody assault on Ukraine they have a lot to do to polish their image as a reasonable actor.
And this btw, might be happening:
Naturally Putin wants his own wheat and fertilizer to be exported, but allowing Ukrainian wheat to be exported would be a positive signal.
Quoting Isaac
Yeah, obviously after the Kyiv operation didn't work out so well, he had to limit his objectives. Your apologetics are astounding.
Quoting Isaac
Don't forget the artificiality of Ukraine as a sovereign state too. Yeah, Putin has annexed Crimea, then has fought a proxy war in Ukraine for eight years and then assaulted with the full force of the Russian Army Ukraine. So yes, when he attacked Ukraine on the 24th February, Putin clearly had the objective to take over the country, at least Kyiv and NovoRossija, perhaps to install a puppet government in place in Kyiv. And obviously he has had to limit his objectives.
And then you here are defending him that "he didn't have the objective to take the country". You don't see how insane your apologetics are.
No Putin has never, ever said that he wants to occupy Ukraine. You've assumed it. I don't object to you surmising or estimating someone's motives from their actions rather than their words. Putin may well have wanted to occupy the whole of Ukraine. I don't know. No apologetics going on at all.
What I objected to was you treating Russia as if their intentions had to be derived from some deep analysis of their actions, off-message speeches, intercepted phone calls... Yet to arrive at America's intention we only need ask it's leader.
That's apologetics. Either treat them both as dishonest or take them both at their word. It's your favourable treatment of Biden that's sycophantic. I've not treated Putin favourably. I think they're both liars.
Now we're getting somewhere. Both sides are evil. So, what's wrong with evil fighting evil in a contained battlefield? It would appear like the only outcome could be a negation of evil. Of course the innocent good people who own property in the battlefield would have to flee, thus surrendering their property. But any good person knows that property is not the greatest good.
The poor sods the two 'evils' get to do their fighting for them.
The Innocents caught in the crossfire, or deliberately targeted.
The poor, who inevitability pay the most for the damage both sides have done to their livelihoods.
The people who each side should have been looking after but weren't because they were too busy playing Top Gun.
... Will that do?
It's the same effort, I guess, reported about at inception and a month later. The article I posted was from Kommersant, a leading Russian economic daily, and was based on an interview of Guterres at a time when he could dare state that "the negotiations are on track", ie moving forward somehow.
Yes, it'd be good if the UN could show some utility at last. They can do neutral like nobody else, to the point of saying strictly nothing at times when you would want them to say something.
That's literally what Macron reported Putin telling him:
Macron had said Putin "wanted to seize control of the whole of Ukraine. He will, in his own words, carry out his operation to 'de-Nazify' Ukraine to the end," a senior aide to the French leader told the AFP news agency.
3 March 2022
Just in what drug-addled world does "de-Nazify' Ukraine" "literally" mean 'take over Ukraine'?
So?
To force regime change, yes.
'De-nazify' doesn't "literally" mean 'force regime change' any more than it "literally" means 'take over'.
It "literally" means 'remove Nazis'. As an objective it could have been satisfied by anything from destroying the Azov battalion, to changing legislation, to killing every last person Putin even vaguely suspected of being slightly right-wing.
What it doesn't, under any circumstances whatsoever, literally mean, is 'take over political control of a neighbouring country'
Even 'regime change' isn't the same as 'taking over' a country. The US wanted regime change in Iraq, but Iraq is not now part of America.
As long as you keep referring to our exchanges in a rather vague and decontestualised way, you are neither proving to understand my claims nor helping me understand your point. And that’s probably a reason why you end up straw manning me (as other interlocutors) so often.
Quoting Isaac
Provide arguments, link sources and offer definitions are what we can do when debating. But those activities are governed by epistemic rules that we can fail to follow: arguments can be flawed formally or informally; definitions can be contradictory, circular, semantic nonsense or ambiguous; evidences can be from unreliable source or misreported or misunderstood or non-pertinent etc.
Quoting Isaac
What do you mean by “completely subjective”? I’m not giving you my judgement as a measure! I gave you arguments for you to assess based on rules you actually do, can and must share and apply to play the game of assessing rationally peoples’ claims and arguments, mine and yours included. BTW, if I were to believe things completely subjectively, what would even be the point to provide arguments to discriminate what is more or less rational? I could simply claim you are a Russian troll/bot, that you claimed that Russians are morally justified in bombing, killing, raping, looting Ukrainians, or that Mearsheimer is paid by Russians. Or I could argue that all my objections to you were perfectly rational for exactly all the same reasons I already pointed out, in spite of being called “completely subjectively”, and not because you made your point but for the simple reason that the expression “completely subjectively” doesn’t discriminate anything, it’s an empty word. Indeed you can’t point at anything that is not completely-subjective, including your own claim that my claims are “completely-subjective”. So, far from having any epistemological value, your claim that “all of the above are completely subjective” serves the only purpose to dispense yourself from rationally validating your claims and continue to nurture your informational bubble. And that amounts to corner yourself into a position that is not rationally compelling.
Quoting Isaac
That objectively is a false claim. I never said “I don’t try to identify the logic structure of the argument” in my previous post. You can prove me wrong by quoting exactly where I wrote “I don’t try to identify the logic structure of the argument”, can you? No, you can’t. And that your claim is objectively false is independent from our political orientations.
Maybe you have a more rationally compelling objection to make, but all you have offered here is yet another straw man argument.
Quoting Isaac
To me it's not an 'intelligence contest' precisely in the sense that I’m not here to test and rank how people are intelligent nor I see the pertinence of talking about people’s intelligence if it’s not the topic under investigation. I’m participating to this forum, primarily because interested in discussing and assessing arguments as rationally as possible. If you are here to do something else, I don’t care.
Quoting Isaac
I have no idea what academic career you have/had and in what field, but it would be shocking to discover you didn’t apply some standard academic methodology to prepare and assess your students’ tests for example, or some standard scientific methodology when making and publishing your research: e.g. in collecting, processing, assessing data wrt a set of hypotheses, and communicating your results on a scientific paper to be reviewed and published. And it would be shocking to discover if your work wasn’t peer reviewed wrt strict epistemic requirements likely including clarity and coherence of the analytic notions used, consistency and consequentiality of your conclusions wrt a set of assumptions, explanatory power of your hypotheses, accuracy and significance of the evidence used to support your claims, etc. Accuracy, consistency, clarity, pertinence, explanatory power, evidential support are epistemic goals that we can pursue or defend to some extent also in informal contexts like debating topics on a philosophy forum. Anyway this is how I would navigate our differences rationally. And I would expect you to do the same with me, if you want to be rationally compelling to me.
Concerning your generic request of details about my rational methods, aren’t all the detailed objections I made to you during our exchanges enough to illustrate what they consist in? Lately you made an objection to me where you evidently failed to logically process a [I]modus tollens[/I]. Is this an objective epistemic failure? Yes it is. Does this epistemic failure have anything to do with political orientations? Absolutely none. Is this a detailed enough illustration of my all-too arcane exoteric top-secret clandestine hush hush unheard so-called “rational methods” that is totally missing in the entire British education system?
Quoting Isaac
No, I’m questioning that you proved as a fact that reached different conclusions are the result of perfectly rational considerations of exactly the same facts, which was the point of your possible scenario.
Quoting Isaac
You can define all you want, but I don’t see the point of talking about probabilities in numeric terms when you nor anybody else - as far as I can tell - even knows how to calculate it. It would be easier to talk about risks in qualitative terms (e.g. very unlikely, unlikely, possible, very likely, practically certain ) for example after consulting and aggregating the feedback from experts in different strategic domains. But still the purpose of fixing democratically a threat index by nation based on some risk assessment looks to me quite obscure. Why wouldn’t current simple opinion polls be enough to you?
Clearly, the Nazis which Putin desires to remove are supported by the present Ukrainian government, so Nazism must go to the top. I think Putin's goal of de-nazifying necessarily requires regime change.
In fact Putin had already in 2014-2015 bullied to Western leaders that he can "roll the tanks to Kharkiv and Kyiv easily".
Quoting Isaac
This is very bizarre semantics. It's difficult to understand Putin's words at the start of the war as anything else than regime change as stated. Now the objectives might have been lowered.
Yet the fact is that Russia made an all out conventional attack against Ukraine starting from February 24th of this year. Before it had fought an 8 year proxy war in the Donbas. And before that it had annexed Crimea and tried to start similar uprisings in other places than Donetsk and Luhansk, where the instigation was successful.
I think that this history of aggression, the actions taken by Russia, speak more clearly than words.
Wait, aren't the ones fighting, the "evils"? You call them "poor sods", but they're fighting an evil war, so I think that makes them evil.
Quoting Isaac
If it's a contained battlefield, why would there be any "innocents" there? I guess what you are saying is that it's not a contained battlefield. Do you think that the good of the world does not have the capacity to contain the evil to that battlefield? Seems to me, like the evil has already run amok, and pervades the entire world. This is why providing it with a battleground might not be a bad idea.
And if we disagree about those judgements?
Quoting neomac
Right. And I disagree that those rules have been broken (by my claims). I think they have been broken by yours. So now what? How can I now argue (using those same rules) that you broke those rules. We're just going to end up in the same position (you think you didn't break them, I think you did).
Quoting neomac
To convince me (or others) to believe the same. I'm not claiming that nothing is objectively irrational (it's a word in a shared language, so it has a shared meaning, not a private one). What I'm saying is that you cannot get further then the range of shared meaning. Several contradictory things can be equally rational (they all fit the definition of the word). Take 'game' for example. A Cow is not a 'game', it's a type of farm animal. Anyone claiming a cow is a game is wrong. But the question of whether, say, juggling is a 'game' is moot - some say it is and others say it isn't. There's nothing more you can do from there to determine whether it's a game or not, there's no outside agency to appeal to. Whether an argument is 'rational' is like that.
Quoting neomac
Not without providing some evidence. It would be a ridiculous claim.
Quoting neomac
Good example.
Here's a dictionary explaining what the Idiom "you're saying" means in English. As you can see, it doesn't literally mean that you actually spoke (or wrote) those exact words. It's an understanding of your meaning. Hence, again, what you think is objectively false only seems that way to you. Other interpretations see it differently.
Quoting neomac
I do. Absolutely none of which is happening here. There have been no scientific papers produced on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, no statistical analysis, no accepted methods and no peer review. But it's not these standards that make for a filtered set of theories in the scientific journals - it's the agreement on how they're measured. If I published a paper in which the conclusion was "I reckon..." without any reference to an experiment or meta-analysis, we'd all agree that's a failure to meet the standards. We're talking here about situations where we disagree about such a failure. You keep referring to epistemic standards (as if I'm disputing they exist), but the question is not their existence it's the resolution of disagreements about whether they've been met. So...
Quoting neomac
...we would both already claim we were. The problem here is that you keep insisting I'm not meeting those standards, but you've got nothing more than your opinion that I'm not. No evidence can be brought to bear, no external authority appealed to. It's just you reading my argument and concluding it is not 'rational' and me reading it and concluding it is. There's literally nothing more that can be appealed to other than our judgements.
Quoting neomac
I disagree. So what I'm asking is what is your method for demonstrating that I'm wrong in that disagreement and you're right?
Quoting neomac
So what method (if not numerical) is used to perform this 'aggregation' and reach the assessment?
How so?
No it isn't. I've understood then other than that. So have many others. That you personally find it difficult is the result of your particular biases (as is the fact that I find it easy). Truth is not given us by the difficulty we have understanding it (otherwise all quantum physics would definitely be wrong!)
Quoting ssu
Exactly the point I was making. Your apologetics for America. You take Biden's word as evidence of America's intent (despite a similar history of aggression), yet with Putin, you look to his actions, not his words. Why the different treatment?
Personally, I tend to trust Biden far more than I trust Putin.
There's no different treatment.
The US is arming substantially Ukraine. It's sharing intelligence about the Russian invader. But it's not declaring a no-fly zone or sending it's troops to Ukraine. Ground forces surely haven't been sent and how many other US actors are in country is an open question. Several articles about how the weapon transfers go into a black hole (see What happens to weapons sent to Ukraine? The US doesn't really know]) hints to that there really aren't many US actors on the ground in Ukraine.
Furthermore,
A war of aggression similar to this on US behalf would be the Spanish-American war, which also resulted in annexations of land from the country attacked. Other war of aggression would be the invasion of Iraq in 2003, were it's quite clear and evident the agenda and the push for the war by certain group in Washington. Cheney started promoting the war against Iraq right on 11th of September 2001 immediately. Likely the idea had been brewing for a long time in neocon circles. The case of Valerie Plame shows the extent where those rooting for the war would go.
In the US, the political apparatus is quite open and leaks make it quite transparent, unlike Russia. If one follows US politics. Hence it's quite easy for example to Noam Chomsky to follow what is happening.
Earlier reports said that Russian Major General Roman Kutuzov was killed in battles near the town of Popasna in the Luhansk region.
:rofl:
I love the language of war. The Ukrainians are catching on. I think the Russians are the best but the Ukrainians are learning.
You're right. Back to the topic.
So those Hungarian bath houses...
There is. You used Biden's statement as evidence of America's intent. You disbelieved Putin's statement (and Lavrov's earlier) deciding that only an analysis of their actions would suffice.
The fact that you can criticise America is not in question. As @Streetlight rightly highlighted...
Quoting Streetlight
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/world/africa/ukraine-grain-russia-sales.html
"We, however, will continue to buy the oil and gas we need #BLM".
Yeah. How dare I disbelieve what Putin or Russian officials sometime say:
And should I remind that some people on this thread seemed to be openly and triumphiantly believed Russia and enjoyed smirking at US alarms:
Why are you demonstrating that Putin and Lavrov are liars? Has someone suggested they aren't?
Quoting Isaac
I've read the first few pages of the thread before the invasion, and I don't see anyone Triumphantly believing Russia.
Mostly people seem to expect the war will happen, and are worried of escalation.
I guess this phrase could be interpreted as "fizzling out" meaning the war doesn't happen.
Quoting I like sushi
... or ... or ... could be interpreted to represent exactly what's happening now.
It's great how you are so completely incapable of comprehension that you don't recognize that the point is not that you "disbelieve Putin", but that you slavishly believe war criminals like Biden.
Quoting Isaac
Disagreement is not the problem, since we could still rationally explore the extent of our disagreements. And for that you still would need rationally compelling arguments which are possible only thanks to a shared set of epistemic rules and shared ways to apply them. Rebutting to your opponent’s objections by expressing a disagreement without providing rationally compelling arguments amounts to withdrawing from a rational confrontation. That’s all.
Another point I would make is that while politics, moral, philosophy are domains where disagreement is frequent and persistent, reaching consensus may be a major issue for the former two, namely politics and moral, not for philosophy. Indeed philosophy is the kind of activity where people can try to rationally examine their own political and moral beliefs without being pressed by consensus concerns and as long as they are willing to put some effort into it. And, again, that effort should go into rationally elaborating arguments, not into acknowledging or listing contentious points or their popularity distribution among people, intelligent people or competent people.
Quoting Isaac
Where is the pertinent argument proving that I broke the rules? And what shared rationale rules are you talking about? If you honestly disagree with my argument proving that you failed to logically process a modus tollens (under the implicit assumption that you fully understand what a modus tollens is and must be correctly applied by anybody, me and you included), you have to provide pertinent rationally challenging arguments yourself.
We play games with actual moves in the play field, not by news reporting about them from the stands.
Quoting Isaac
Then - as I already anticipated - I would exactly do all I did, so what is the point of claiming that my judgements are completely subjective as yours or anybody else’s? We would still be in condition to possibly convince others based on rational compelling arguments! Claiming that all my claims or judgements are completely subjective is devoid of any cognitive meaning. So, at best it expresses your intention to withdrawal from rational confrontation.
Quoting Isaac
Here my comment:
First, I’m not not sure what the sentence “I'm not claiming that nothing is objectively irrational” is supposed to mean, maybe you should rephrase it. And if what you wanted to claim is that you admit objective and rational judgement then how could you at the same time claim “There’s literally nothing more that can be appealed to other than our judgements” or that my claims are completely subjective?!
Second, can you tell me then what is the shared meaning of a claim like “all of the above are completely subjective” through words whose meaning you assume we share and how could we possible share meanings if all my and your judgements are completely subjective?
Third, “contradictory things can be equally rational” looks a poor phrasing for the claim that people may have classificatory disagreements because the concepts used suffer from some indeterminacy. Agreed, so what? The indeterminacy can be still disambiguated in a way that is still intelligible by relying on the use cases where indeterminacy doesn’t arise and other shared concepts not suffering from such indeterminacy. In other words indeterminacies must be commensurable to still be intelligible as indeterminacies of certain classificatory concepts. Besides some epistemic rules at the core of our rational methods are so basic and cross domain that putative indeterminacies would quickly escalate into nonsense if they resist rational examination: e.g. you can not possibly understand and apply the modus tollens in a different way from what I did , unless you did it by mistake. And if I’m wrong about it because I missed something in the given circumstances that would justify that apparent transgression, then go ahead and show me what that is with an actual counter-argument.
Quoting Isaac
Here “some evidence”: you said “the West and Ukraine bear the blame of this war so now Putin is morally justified to send his army to bomb kill rape loot Ukrainians”.
“Evidence”, “providing some evidence”, “ridiculous claim” would still be matter of my completely subjective judgment and differ from yours. And I could play it all the ways I want since there is nothing you can appeal to except my own judgement and completely subjective interpretation.
And again why would I need to provide evidence? Why would I care if you claim that I’m ridiculous? If I needed your consensus it would be easier for me to feed your informational bubble, not to question it.
Quoting Isaac
Here my objections:
First, I don’t care if there are whatever other possible use cases of the word “say”. I care about the ones that make sense to apply to your claim against mine in the specific context you used it. So pointing me to some unrelated idiomatic usage of the word “say” is pointless.
Second, your actual usage was contrasting my actual claim with some other claim you misattributed to me (“Now you're saying you don’t”) to suggest an inexistent inconsistency. And that’s exactly another example of objective intellectual failure, because when rationally challenging peoples’ claims and arguments, accuracy and clarity are key. Certainly loose or ambiguous talk may be tolerated to some extent yet not at the expense of your opponents’ actual claims as they have been formulated, especially if you have objections to raise against them.
Third, there are different interpretations as there are mistakes, and it’s a very bad self-serving line of reasoning to admit the former to question the possibility of admitting the latter and dispense people from acknowledging their own blatant mistakes, as you keep doing.
[quote=“Isaac;705528”]I do. Absolutely none of which is happening here. There have been no scientific papers produced on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, no statistical analysis, no accepted methods and no peer review. But it's not these standards that make for a filtered set of theories in the scientific journals - it's the agreement on how they're measured. If I published a paper in which the conclusion was "I reckon..." without any reference to an experiment or meta-analysis, we'd all agree that's a failure to meet the standards. We're talking here about situations where we disagree about such a failure. You keep referring to epistemic standards (as if I'm disputing they exist), but the question is not their existence it's the resolution of disagreements about whether they've been met.[/quote]
Once one has learnt an arithmetic rule like summing natural numbers, the application of the rule doesn’t change if one is no longer supervised by the professor of math or in a math class. The same goes with the rule of the modus tollens or the rule of accurately reporting people’s claims.
And as you don’t deliver your scientific results through insulting people, repeating ad nauseam claims, alluding to risks of ostracism, sarcastic comments, accusing people of serving some political agenda, and expect others to question your scientific research in the same spirit (not with rebuttals like “I disagree with you and you didn’t literally give me anything more than your completely subjective judgement as a measure”), then you can as well deliver your rationally compelling arguments in the same spirit here and expect others do the same with your arguments.
Quoting Isaac
My opinion that you are not meeting those standards results from arguments applying precisely those standards I’m appealing to (and distinct from my judgement!). So yes, there is literally more than just my opinion that you are not meeting those standards: there is an argument from which that conclusive opinion results as a corollary. And you are challenged to address that argument with a counter-argument possibly more effective than mine in applying shared rational standards. Claiming that you disagree with that opinion of mine is totally missing the point I’m making.
Worse than this, I find your claim “There’s literally nothing more that can be appealed to other than our judgements” empty because it applies equally to all our judgements (including those “appealing to” evidences and authorities) at any moment in any circumstance no matter if they are correct or wrong. And even the concept of “appealing to” which we all have learnt as referring to normative principles distinct from our own judgement is misused and voided of its normative force when every “appealing to” is eventually reduced to our own personal judgement.
Quoting Isaac
There is no method of demonstrating the rule that has been infringed other than showing how the rule must have been correctly applied. When you fail to calculate an arithmetic sum, I can show you how to calculate it correctly by actually calculating that sum as everybody learnt to effectively calculate it. When you fail to process a modus tollens, I can show you how to process it correctly by actually processing the modus tollens as everybody learnt to effectively apply it.
And it would pointless to still observe “you just ‘keep saying’ you applied the rule correctly” because even claiming to have applied some rule correctly is an activity which should be again correctly executed to grant claim accuracy wrt actually shared epistemic rules. In other words, by providing actual pertinent arguments I’m thereby illustrating to you exactly all those epistemic rules I must assume sharable with you, intelligible to you and applicable by you in the same way in that context, also when correcting you.
Quoting Isaac
The aggregation can be numerical or not, all depends on how it is implemented of course. My point was that instead of directly calculating the numeric probability of a Russian nuclear attack against some NATO country, it could be easier to ask some security expert or team of security experts how likely a Russian nuclear attack against some NATO country is, where the “likelihood” parameter ranges over a non-numerical ordered set of values like very unlikely, unlikely, possible, very likely, practically certain ).
As usual, you aren’t just ignoring the actual sequence of events, but you don’t seem to think your statements through. :grin:
I think it makes perfect sense for Russia to have said that it had “no aggressive plans about Ukraine”, given that the problem was not Ukraine but NATO!
On 8 June 2017, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law making integration with NATO "a foreign policy priority”.
On 14 September 2020, Zelensky approved Ukraine's new National Security Strategy, "which provides for the development of a distinctive partnership with NATO with the aim of membership in NATO".
At the same time, NATO members were arming and training Ukrainian forces. Theoretically, this could have been for "defensive" purposes. But "defense" could have implied taking Crimea and the Donbas region.
Certainly, Ukrainian membership of NATO would have meant (1) Ukraine trying to take Crimea and the Donbas with NATO assistance, and (2) NATO threatening Russia’s southwestern flank.
NATO occupation of Crimea would have been particularly unacceptable to Russia as it would have resulted in Russia losing its Crimean naval bases that it has used since 1783, and in the Black Sea (which Russia needs for transit to the Mediterranean) being turned into a NATO- i.e., US-controlled, lake.
On December 23, 2021, Putin said:
The fact that Russia massed its forces on the Ukrainian border didn’t necessarily mean it was going to invade no matter what. It could have meant that it was going to invade IF its security concerns were ignored.
On the other hand, why was America so damn sure that Russia was going to invade? Because it knew that it wasn’t going to meet Russia’s requests or even consider them, dismissing them as a “non-starter”:
Russian demands are 'non-starters,' says U.S. diplomat – The Week
And the reason why America refused to even consider Russia’s requests is that it sees Russia as a threat to US hegemony. As former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski put it:
- The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives
Clearly, America sees Russia as an obstacle to its “God-given primacy and hegemony”, that needs to be eliminated. This is reflected in NATO’s expressly stated aim to “keep America in Europe and Russia out”.
IMO it follows that Ukraine is just a victim of America’s aim to achieve unchallenged global supremacy and, in particular, control over Europe.
The disagreement is about what is rational. It's about whether I have or have not stuck to those rules you mention. It's about whether I have or have not provided those 'rationally compelling arguments'. How do we resolve that disagreement? More 'rationally compelling arguments', about which you and I will inevitably disagree over whether they are such?
Quoting neomac
This just begs the question. The question is whether I have actually provided rational arguments (you disagree) and you're claiming that to make my case (that I have provided rational arguments) I must provide rational arguments to that effect. If we agreed on what constitutes 'rational arguments' then there would be no question to answer in the first place.
Quoting neomac
Not at all. As I've expressed here several times, there is a substantial difference between rejecting an argument that has overwhelming evidence to the contrary and accepting an argument which doesn't. The important distinction is that one is compelled to do the former (if one wants to remain rational), but one is not compelled to do the latter (many such arguments exist - underdetermination). Hence the focus is erroneously on which arguments must be ruled out by overwhelming evidence to the contrary, rather than on the reasons for choosing among those which remain.
Most of us are intelligent enough to have already discarded theories which are overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary, those of us that are not can simply defer to experts (who are). Thus it's very unlikely that any theory being seriously discussed is overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary, and us such none of us are compelled by the 'rules of rational thought' to discard it.
What remains are the range of theories which are not overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary - the plausible theories. From among these, however, rationality is useless as a method of choosing. all rationality can tell us is that the theory is plausible (which we already knew by its inclusion in this set). There's no evidence that can be brought (all theories in this set have supporting evidence), there's no logic that can be used (all theories in this set are logically valid). So the arguments persuading people to adopt one theory over another are not rational ones, they are emotional ones, social ones, ethical ones...
Quoting neomac
Exactly. Notice the two uses of 'everybody' there? Notice the complete absence of any reference to 'everybody' in your claims?
You cannot demonstrate that I have summed 2 and 2 incorrectly by simply saying that I have. The only way you can do so is by reference to 'everybody else' - some maths professor, a few students, day-to-day life... the argument is "that's not the way we do it", but to sustain that argument there must be a 'we', your word is not sufficient. If you think I've failed to process a modus tollens correctly, but I think I haven't, we have nothing more to appeal to that "that's not the way we do it", but for any argument much more complex than 2+2=4, you will fined different people do it different ways, so where does that leave your recourse to such a claim?
What may be useful (covering both this issue and the OP topic) is if you provide the modus tollens you think I've failed to process properly. We can both agree to the rule that...
P1: If X, then Y.
P2: Not Y.
C: Therefore, not X.
...follows.
So what are X and Y in the matter of some issue pertinent to the thread over which you and I disagree? No long winded exposition. Modus tollens does not accommodate such, just two propositions, X and Y.
I was pocking fun at it, not complaining.
What do you call Russia's activities then?
Quoting jorndoe
(? a month ago or something?)
Ukraine Official Fired Over Handling of Russian Sexual Assault Claims (May 31, 2022)
Quoting Lyudmyla Denisova (Wikipedia)
Yay!
NATO claims that it’s got a “right of expansion”, allegedly, as a “defensive” measure in response to "Russian aggression". But if NATO has that right, so does Russia.
In other words, if NATO expands for fear of Russia, Russia invades Ukraine for fear of NATO.
And considering that since the dissolution of the Soviet Union it has been NATO, not Russia, that has been expanding and planning to expand, Russia arguably has a right to invade Ukraine as a defensive measure.
There are several theories why it took Russia so long to invade Ukraine, that involve a number of factors. One of them is that as America refused to even consider Russia’s requests, Russia was hoping that European governments – especially those whose economies depended on Russian oil and gas – might put pressure on America to do something about Russia’s requests.
Unfortunately, Europe decided to do as told by America (and its British poodle), and at that point the invasion became inevitable. The fact that Russia invaded Ukraine doesn’t mean that it would have invaded no matter what. It might have decided not to invade, had its (I think legitimate) demands been met.
At any rate, IMO, NATO must bear some responsibility for the invasion.
Quoting jorndoe
Quoting jorndoe
No-NATO isn't a peace-maker, hasn't been for some time. Worked as an excuse for a bit, though, but not any more. Instead, Sweden and Finland are heading for NATO membership as a result of the invasion. Putin called out, and ought to quit the Ukrainian ruinage, looting, pilfering, killing, displacements, deportations, land-grabbing attempts, possibly creating a lot of haters that will take time to reverse.
What does that mean in practice, though?
Sorry, but this isn't about Sweden and Finland. The question is whether and to what extent NATO has been a cause to the conflict.
Quoting Olivier5
If NATO has a “right of expansion”, so does Russia. If NATO can say that it feels “threatened” by Russia, Russia also can say that it feels threatened by NATO.
It’s exactly the same logic. And since both sides can’t expand indefinitely, expansion must lead to conflict. Therefore, we need to see who is causing the conflict, for example, by expanding in the direction of the other.
NATO was created to keep Russia out of Western Europe. But after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, its new objective was to keep Russia not only out of Western Europe but also out of Eastern Europe.
While NATO has been massively expanding (from 12 to 30 countries!) Russia has not.
Moreover, it isn’t an existential issue for NATO to stop expanding in the direction of Russia, but it is an existential issue for Russia if NATO keeps expanding until Russia ceases to exist.
So, I think it is a fallacy to look at it from the perspective of international law, (a) because international law was created to defend the interests of the British Empire and its American successor, and (b) because international law isn’t applied equally in all cases (see Germany, Tibet, Cyprus, Kurdistan, etc.).
It makes more sense to look at it from the perspective of justice. As I said before, justice is a fundamental element of Classical and Christian philosophy.
Essentially, justice demands that one doesn’t take more than what is proper so as to upset equality, harmony, or peace in relation to one’s neighbors.
According to Aristotle,
NATO claims that it has a “right of infinite expansion”. But the rights of the individual (or group of individuals) are not unlimited. They are restricted by the rights of others. And what applies to relations between citizens also applies to international relations. It is a clear violation of the principle of justice for a party to take more than what is proper or to disproportionately restrict the rights of others.
NATO expansion and Ukrainian claims to Crimea are obvious violations of justice as they ignore the rights of countries like Russia.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with Ukraine being independent and joining NATO. But if Ukrainian independence means that Russia loses its naval ports and bases in Crimea, and Ukrainian membership of NATO means that the Black Sea is taken over by NATO or America, then this creates problems for
Russia to which it has a right to react in ways that it thinks are necessary to defend its national interests.
Independence was Ukraine’s decision and action, not Russia’s. Therefore, the onus was on Ukraine to insure that its action didn’t infringe the rights of Russia.
Otherwise, what we’re saying is that Russia can’t have security concerns, can’t feel threatened by NATO, and generally can’t do anything and should allow itself to be acted on like a piece of driftwood swept away by America’s ever-expanding NATO sea.
In other words, Russia has no right to exist except as a colony of America and its EU-NATO Empire. IMO this comes very close to what Hitler planned for Russia.
In terms of NATO bearing responsibility, it should (1) accept responsibility and (b) work toward an end to the conflict that takes into consideration Russia’s security concerns.
Unfortunately, NATO was created to protect US interests and as things currently stand it's hard to imagine Europeans breaking free from US domination any time soon ....
This is ridiculous Apollodorus. There is a big difference between an organization like NATO expanding because other countries are willfully joining, and a country expanding through forceful invasion of another.
Quoting Apollodorus
You sure have a bad sense for logic.
Just like NATO has a right to welcome new voluntary members, Russia has a right to welcome whichever country, region or people willingly wishing to join it...
Well, I disagree. Something isn't "ridiculous" just because you say so.
Expansion doesn't happen for no reason. There is an intention and motive behind it.
Therefore, the legitimacy of the intention/motive needs to be examined first.
The method and manner by which the expansion is conducted is a separate issue and comes second.
Motives have nothing to see with legitimacy. Hitler had good intentions too.
But carry on, since I don't agree with either of you.
"Putin, speaking with students on Thursday after visiting an exhibition about Peter the Great, Russia's first emperor credited with making the country a major power in the early 18th century, compared himself to the ruler and said they were both destined to expand Russia."
Insider
So you are making a moral argument. There are a few problems with that, in these circumstances.
1. The point made by Apo was about legitimacy, not morality.
2. A few posters here have rightly pointed out that morality applies to individuals, not to institutions, so to speak of the morality of NATO is making a category error. One needs to morally indict presidents, generals and the likes but not a country or an alliance of countries. These entities need to be assessed against their stated goals, which does not to my knowledge include the boy scout pledge, or adherence to any other moral creed.
3. Even if one could morally indict a 'system' as wholly corrupt, eg if a vast majority of its leadership was found totally compromised morally speaking, and the rules of the system pipped in their favor, then who is to prosecute and indict these NATO officials and dignitaries with their deserved punishment?
God? Putin? Or even better, Putin as the scourge of God?
Then his point should stand uncontested. A country definitely has a legitimate right to expand. There is no law preventing expansion.
Quoting Olivier5
A typically ludicrous argument. You might as well say that we can avoid talking about the 'morality' of voting since governments are not moral agents. We support, or not, these institutions. Our support is moral or not depending on the actions of those institutions we support. Imagine if NATO had as a goal the extermination of the Jewish people. Do you think it would be in least bit relevant to point out that condemning such a goal as barbaric would be irrelevant since the institution itself is not a moral agent?
If NATO are acting immorally, then supporting them is immoral. We're not (despite your pathological obsession with the idea) standing in judgement of global actors. We are judging what we ought to do.
Quoting Olivier5
Why would we need to prosecute them? Again your obsession with judgement and punishment is your own, there's no need to drag everyone else into your Judge Dred fantasy. The rest of us are talking about what we ordinary people ought to do. Which institutions we ought to support, which institutions we ought to criticise...
The UN charter does.
Quoting Isaac
Voting is an individual act, not an institution, so you don't have a point.
Quoting Isaac
Back to category error. NATO is a military alliance between nations meant to protect its members, not to be a boy scout club. People ought to judge it on its own merit: whether or not it protects them.
There is nothing in the UN charter against voluntary uniting countries. As such it does not rule against expansion.
Quoting Olivier5
The government one votes for is an institution. Since institutions are not moral actors it would be perfectly moral to vote for the Nazi party then, after all, the Nazi party are an institution so cannot do anything morally wrong?
Quoting Olivier5
Why?
In this case, there's nothing voluntary about it, so you don't actually have a point.
Quoting Isaac
Because NATO was never meant to be a moral agent, but an effective military alliance.
It doesn't seem that way to me. People tend to use the terms interchangeably and he seemed to want to make a moral argument. My point was about intent being relevant, even for legitimacy. Courts will rule against people who abuse their rights. So it's both a legal and moral argument, they can happily coincide.
Quoting Olivier5
God, that must be why we have a whole approach to institutional morality? Because it doesn't exist. And even Aristotle wrote about social justice, you know, how to arrange institutions in such a way that we have socially just outcomes? But that has nothing to do with morality, my bad.
Seems to me a few posters simply don't know what they're talking about but it's opportune to agree with them because it avoids having to question how NATO functions, what it was set out to do and what it is doing now. In a very practical sense virtue ethics can be applied rather easily to institutions.
3 isn't relevant given the above.
Russia's claim is that the independent nations of Donetsk and Luhansk asked for military aid. And are now, after a successful mission neutralising Ukraine's military, the only areas substantially still occupied. Making their actions completely legitimate.
This, of course, depends on whether that is actually what happened. But questions of fact are legitimately decided by courts of law, not loonies off of the internet.
So yes, their actions so far can be said to be legitimate.
Personally, I prefer to condemn them on moral grounds, but I can see why you'd want to avoid doing that, it might take the sheen off the Top Gun poster on your bedroom wall.
Quoting Olivier5
So you're saying we cannot morally condemn the actions of an institution without a moral objective. So the SS were fine as far as you're concerned. The whole concentration camps, gas chambers...no moral judgement from you on those? After all, they were set up to kill Jews and they did that very well didn't they.
No moral condemnation for the gas chambers of the SS, just a hearty round of applause at a job well done, eh?
He was not, from what I can tell. But maybe he will clarify what he was trying to say.
Quoting Isaac
The SS were only men. There were not 'an institution'.
by AFP and Le Figaro
Ukraine has exhausted all of its Russian and Soviet-made weaponry and now depends exclusively on weapons supplied to it by foreign allies, including Western artillery, according to several US military sources. In fact, Ukraine's deputy military intelligence chief, Vadym Skibitsky, told the Guardian that his country has been firing 5,000 to 6,000 artillery shells a day since the start of the war. " It's an artillery war now [...] and we are losing in terms of artillery ", alerted the official, indicating to our colleagues that " Ukraine has one piece of artillery against 10 to 15 pieces Russians ”. “ It all depends now on what the West gives us ,” he added.
As soon as Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Westerners mobilized to support Kyiv, which demanded arms and ammunition, while avoiding at all costs taking any action that could be seen as a provocation by Russia -- for fear that the conflict will spread beyond the borders of Ukraine. Without saying so, they also feared that their advanced weapons would fall into the hands of the Russian army.
The West therefore turned to the former Soviet bloc countries, which still had Soviet-standard ammunition, to replace those that the Ukrainian forces were firing at the Russian army. But even these stocks have run out, and Europe's Russian-made arsenal " has disappeared from the face of the planet ", a military official told AFP.
This is why the United States and the other NATO allies have decided to ignore the risks of the conflict spreading or technological leaks. Washington began handing over to Ukraine heavy equipment such as howitzers at first, then advanced equipment such as Himars rocket launchers, high-precision artillery pieces with a range greater than those of the Russian army.
The allies are trying to coordinate their military assistance to Kiev, and to synchronize it so that the Ukrainian forces receive a " continuous flow of ammunition ", but also of spare parts and light weapons, another American military official explained.
This is the stated objective of the Contact Group for Ukraine created by US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin, whose first meeting was held in April in the presence of some forty countries in Ramstein, Germany.
After a second virtual meeting in May, Ukraine's allies are due to meet on June 15 in Brussels.
And if Western weaponry seems to be trickling into Ukraine, it's because the allies want to make sure Kyiv is able to absorb it safely and limit the risk of bombing its ammunition stocks. The United States is therefore sending its military assistance in installments, the latest of which, of 700 million, announced on June 1, included four Himars artillery systems, but also 1,000 additional Javelin anti-tank missiles and four Mi-17 helicopters. , 15,000 shells intended for Howitzers, 15 light armored vehicles, and other ammunition of various calibers. “ We try to maintain a constant flow ,” the second military official said.
Asked about the low numbers of Himars as Ukrainians appear struggling in Donbass, US Chief of Staff General Mark Milley said on Wednesday that Washington wanted to make sure Ukrainian soldiers had them under control well before send more. The Himars is a " sophisticated " system, and " you have to certify these boys, make sure they know how to use these systems correctly ", declared the highest ranking American. It is necessary to train the operators, but also the soldiers in charge of maintenance, as well as the officers and non-commissioned officers so that they are deployed where it is necessary, when it is necessary, he explained.
For Washington, this first shipment is above all a trial balloon to ensure that Himar technology does not fall into enemy hands and that the Ukrainians use this expensive and sensitive equipment wisely. But that does not prevent the Pentagon from preparing the next tranche of military aid. Additional Himars and their ammunition are already prepositioned in Germany, and they will be sent to Ukraine if the experience with the first four proves positive, according to another American military source.
On the other hand, Washington has ruled out granting Kiev long-range combat drones like the " Grey Eagle ", whose range reaches 300 km, enough to hit a major Russian city, according to this source.
What's there to "clarify"???
If you unlawfully (or unjustly) kill someone, you'll rightly get jailed for murder. If you do it purely in self-defense, or in defense of others, you'll get acquitted or (depending on the circumstances) even praised for doing it. So, intention and motive are absolutely crucial in determining legitimacy.
This is why it is imperative to investigate NATO's intentions and motives instead of uncritically blaming it all on Russia.
What are NATO then, robots?
As explained, the question raised was whether your argument is about morality or legitimacy.
Quoting Apollodorus
Therefore, Ukrainians and their allies are worthy of praise, since Ukraine is acting in self defense. Thank you for recognising this.
For your info, NATO is an alliance, composed of several signatory nations.
Ah, well in that case, for your info. The SS were an organisation composed of several administrative and operational units.
So are we back to judging the SS purely relative to their goals now? Well done them, eh?
Yes. I have no problem with the notion that the SS was a morally repugnant organisation because it facilitated the genocide of millions of Jews.
As has already pointed out, this is not in the least bit unusual. We have notions of institutional morality, institutional blame...etc.
But let's not pretend you don't already know that. You're just looking for a way to wriggle out of having to deal with any moral judgement of NATO because that leaves you without the social support of the zeitgeist.
Just a bunch of guys, just doing their jobs...
I recall there was some kind of trial involving that.
Seems so.
Amusing to see just how far people will go to maintain their narrative that NATO are the good guys. I wasn't expecting a full on exculpation of the SS...yet here we are...
It was my last post on the side issue. I don't mind to answer you in pvt or in a new thread.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscows-chief-rabbi-leaves-russia-amid-pressure-back-war-ukraine-2022-06-08/
Nah. As usual, it looks like you didn't think that one through, in addition to not paying attention! :grin:
1. Note that I said "purely in self-defense". If other motives are involved, then it isn't unqualified self-defense.
2. You haven't established that it is unqualified self-defense.
3. Russia can also argue that it is acting in self-defense. An invasion can perfectly well be part of a defensive war. And as they say, offense is the best defense.
4. The West has always aimed to destroy Russia, going back to the Franco-Russian, Napoleonic, and Crimean wars of the 1700’s and 1800’s.
After the Russian revolution of 1917 there were Western plans to dismantle the Russian Empire and divide it between England, France, and other Western powers:
W. Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath, p. 166
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, indeed, even before it had dissolved, there were calls in the Bush administration for Russia to be dismantled:
Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, p. 97
In addition, there were a string of “color revolutions” aiming to topple governments in the region that Russia believed to have been instigated by anti-Russian Western powers: Yugoslavia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), Kyrgyzstan (2005), and especially, Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution of 2014.
So, when Putin in his 2014 annual speech said that the West wanted to see Russia “collapsed and dismembered like Yugoslavia”, I think it’s fair to say that he did have a point.
In March 2022 he said:
Again, given that Western-backed opposition groups with links to the “color revolutions” elsewhere were also active in Russia, he wasn’t far of the mark:
- The opposition group Open Russia was founded by Russia’s richest oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2001 and later run from London.
- The Anti-Corruption Foundation was founded in 2011 by operatives of telecom firm VimpelCom (co-founded by the American Augie K. Fabela II) and associated industry and finance consortium Alfa Group (controlled by the Gibraltar-based CTF Holdings), whose boss Michael Fridman is Russian representative on the US Council on Foreign Relations.
- Alfa Group bosses were also involved in founding the opposition party People’s Alliance, etc., etc.
In any case, the contribution of US foreign policy to the conflict with Russia has been acknowledged by the policy makers themselves:
Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War
It follows that the West must acknowledge its share of responsibility for the conflict and work toward ending the conflict as soon as possible and in a way that takes Russia’s interests and concerns into consideration. In fact, IMO, it has a moral obligation to do so.
You haven't established that it's not. And I don't see why other motives would matter. If it is self defense, then that's what it is. What else do you need? A pure heart?
:up:
Individual Ukrainians may or may not act in self-defense to some extent. But if their ultimate goal (individually or collectively) is to take what rightfully belongs to Russia, e.g. Crimea, then their "self-defense" is necessarily qualified by their intention to take something that doesn't belong to them. So, it very much does matter.
In terms of the NATO-Russia conflict, given that NATO, not Russia, keeps expanding, it is Russia that is acting in self-defense, not NATO.
And, as US foreign-policy makers like defense secretary Robert Gates have admitted to having played a hand in causing the conflict, I think it is right for America and its NATO Empire to assume responsibility for their actions .
Who Crimea belongs to is open to debate.
Quoting Apollodorus
Did he though?
Putin compares himself to Peter the Great in quest to take back Russian lands (The Guardian; Jun 10, 2022)
[sup]Putin compared himself to Peter the Great, 350 years after the birth of the founder of the Russian Empire. Putin said Peter the Great's wars against the Swedish Empire were not conflicts of conquest but were taking back historically Russian land. While referring to the Battle of Narva in modern-day Estonia, Putin said it's fallen on him to take back and strengthen historically Russian lands. Speech seen as an appalling threat to neighbors.[/sup] :fire:
The men were also convicted of mercenary activities and terrorism.
Well, according to some, it isn't open to debate at all. Allegedly, Crimea belongs to Ukraine, Ukraine belongs to NATO, and NATO belongs to America .... :grin:
If all you do is listen to Western propaganda or selectively trawl through news programs to watch Ukrainian houses being shelled by Russian artillery, then you will probably get mad at the Russians. But if you’re less selective you might hear this guy from Soledar in Donetsk say that “they need to withdraw the troops from residential areas as otherwise the Russians will hit civilians”, and you might come to realize that there is more to the story than what news programs are trying to convey.
Essentially, getting emotional in situations of this type isn’t a good idea as emotions can impair your ability to think straight and makes you more susceptible to being influenced and manipulated by propaganda.
This is why Plato rightly says that emotions should be controlled by reason and reason should be guided by justice. A cool head seems to be essential in good philosophy as much as in rational thinking generally.
So, I think you guys should try to familiarize yourselves with the historical and geopolitical background of the conflict and with what Russia actually wants, instead of speculating, fantasizing, or pointlessly “philosophizing” about it.
At the very least, you could do yourselves (and the forum) a favor and quit uncritically swallowing Zelensky’s and NATO’s propaganda and lies.
Anyway, here’s some food for thought from proper experts who IMO have a much better understanding of the situation than any (or most) of you:
What The West (Still) Gets Wrong About Putin – Foreign Policy
If you think about it, Russia has absolutely no means of taking over Europe and it definitely isn’t about to invade New York, London, or Paris.
The truth of the matter is that while Europeans are hiding under the bed for fear of Russia, it’s America that is taking over Europe by stealth:
Revealed: the quiet US takeover of Britain's arms industry – The Telegraph
And it isn't just Britain. The problem is, the American public are ignorant of what’s really happening in Europe and Europeans are in denial about the American government’s intentions - or the intentions of the defense corporations that are currently flooding Europe with overpriced US tanks, howitzers, and rocket systems. Germany alone is spending EUR100 billion on defense this year, much of it on US-made stuff like F-35A fighter jets (USD78 million apiece).
And, of course, a lot of the weaponry being dumped by the West on Ukraine, will end up in the hands of criminal gangs and smugglers and make its way to Western Europe.
Guerre en Ukraine : Interpol craint un afflux d'armes illicites après le conflit – Le Figaro
Meantime, Biden is sending Latin American immigrants to Spain like England used to ship blacks to its colonies. Yet some still insist that America isn’t treating Europe as its colonial possession ….
Quoting Wayfarer
Yep. And because he was a "colorless and unexceptional pupil" it logically follows that he is "animated by a malevolent spirit".
And, of course, malevolent spirits only lurk around in Russia. Never in Western Europe, China, Africa, America, or the Middle East. And Australian Aboriginals gave their country to the Brits of their own accord ....
Well done, mate! :smile:
Very funny. You seem to be related to @ssu, after all. Or maybe to that clown Zelensky. :rofl:
The fact is that there is very little knowledge of history, geography, and politics in this discussion, and even less serious analysis and objectivity.
The way I see it, most objective analysts ascribe some responsibility for the conflict to the West.
According to John Mearsheimer, Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago,
See also:
(Originally published in The Economist, March 19, 2022.)
John Mearsheimer On Why The West Is Principally Responsible For The Ukrainian Crisis
Incidentally, the West calls Moroccan and British mercenaries fighting in Ukraine “heroes” and Kurds fighting Turkish occupation “terrorists”. And NATO keeps saying that "Turkey has legitimate security concerns", but Russia doesn’t.
Yet some still believe in the "objectivity" of the Western media and politicians!
As I said, give Tibet back to the Tibetans, Cyprus back to the Cypriots, and Kurdistan back to the Kurds, and you might stand a chance of sounding credible.
You and I clearly have very very different standards for how to treat others, enemies notwithstanding. As I said earlier, your position is based upon an emaciated set of morals. Specifically, how to treat others.
Do you trust that Putin is an honest goodwilled actor in all this? Does the assassination of his political enemies influence your view?
This seems to be the basis of Putin's talk about the west, particularly regarding whether or not the west could be trusted to keep their word. I'm saddened to say that I find the claim that US foreign policies are suspect to be a generally well founded one. However, that fact(and claims about the fact) could also be used as a means to attempt to justify unacceptable aggression for less than honorable aims, and that is what I believe is currently happening.
Self-sufficiency is a good thing for any and all sovereign nations. Of course, very few have the natural resources necessary to be so, and this has been highlighted and increased by the global economy. The issue of lacking natural resources supports nations working together to their mutual benefit. Unfortunately, this international codependency was fostered and implemented mainly by greed for profit as opposed to mutual benefit of the countries' citizens, and is a large part of the reasons why and how the wealth gap has increased over the last forty years.
Because believing that one should not approach others in bad faith is ... just egregious!!!!!! Emaciated!!!!
And this coming from a Buddhist.
I'm curious...
What would you suggest be necessarily included for a long lasting treaty between Ukraine and Russia?
No. I agree with that.
It's emaciated to believe that one cannot peacefully coexist with their enemies.
It's narcissistic to unilaterally declare someone one's enemy. It's an act of bad faith. Someone isn't your enemy just because you call them that.
"Peacefully coexisting with your enemies" is narcissistic, patronizing, Western Christian nonsense.
I agree with that. And I would add give back Palestine to the Palestinians, Russia to the Russians, and Ukraine to the Ukrainians.
:up:
I don't think I've declared myself a Buddhist on this forum, although I have a strong interest in Buddhism, and would appreciate not being stereotyped.
----
Anyway - Putin himself invoked the spirit of the tsar Peter to rationalise his invasion. His actions and murderous disregard for human life are in keeping with the spirit of Josef Stalin also.
I rewatched Ivan the Terrible recently. The language is closer to Putin's than even Stalin's.
With Eisenstein, of course, it is all mixed up with each other.
That's just rhetorical nonsense, isn't it? Presumably, by "goodwilled actor" you mean someone that sucks up to Washington and Wall Street?!
And, of course, you just "happen" to be totally unaware of the numerous US assassination attempts against foreign leaders!
List of assassinations by the United States - Wikipedia
Quoting creativesoul
Nothing more than what has already been suggested by experienced and knowledgeable diplomats and analysts: (1) give Crimea and ethnic-Russian parts of Ukraine to Russia and (2) keep Ukraine out of NATO. Unfortunately, this isn't possible unless and until America gets kicked out of Europe, by Europeans.
Quoting Olivier5
1. You may "agree" with that for rhetorical purposes. But you aren't doing it!!! :grin:
2. By all means, give Ukraine to the Ukrainians. But not to NATO and America. And not Crimea and the ethnic-Russian areas.
Quoting Olivier5
Again, you're exposing your duplicity and ignorance of history.
The Germans were encircled on all sides by France, Russia, and the British Empire. Stalin had started war preparations against Germany back in 1926, long before Hitler came to power. Stalin's Communist International (COMINTERN) aimed to create a Soviet-controlled United States of Europe. Invading Poland was the logical step toward invading Russia in a defensive war.
And you conveniently forget Poland’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine in 1569:
In other words, you haven’t got a clue. Alternatively, you’ve got zero interest in facts, which IMO is even worse ….
You seem to think making shit up and acting as if someone else has said it counts as an appropriate reply, and that name calling counts.
You're arguing with your own imaginary opponent. I've got better things to do. Have fun.
No, that's not just "rhetorical nonsense", and that is not what I mean by "goodwilled actor".
That's a very disappointing response. I would expect someone so consistently condemning ulterior motives for action as you've been doing when it comes to the US to be someone who also ought be touting the benefits of honest communication about what's happened and/or is happening.
So, what you're saying is that it's OK for America to pursue a policy of assassination of political opponents, but not for Russia!
Anyway, if you find other people's reply to your rhetorical questions "disappointing", then don't bother asking rhetorical questions! :grin:
Not what I'm saying, nor was that a rhetorical question.
Does the assassination of Putin's political opponents(who were Russian citizens) influence your view?
Do you trust that Putin is an honest goodwilled actor in all this?
This could be a textbook case of projecting one's beliefs onto others. Given that you have not condemned the behaviours in question when talking about Putin's, it may be highly likely.
1. You mean "alleged assassination"!
2. Does an alleged "assassination" influence my view on NATO's stated aim of "keeping America in Europe, Russia out, and Germany down"? Of course not. Why on earth should it?
3. NATO was created in 1949. Putin was born in 1952. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Putin isn't responsible for NATO or its constant expansion .... :grin:
You and you love Putin aren't doing it either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The 'ethnic Russians' are just invaders from previous periods, and Putin is killing a great deal of them anyway. They don't deserve him nor his terror anymore than other Russians do, and would be better off in democratic Ukraine. But you don't give a shit about them. You'd rather have your idol kill more and more of them.
And then you and others whine forever about 'NATO caca'. :vomit:
Quoting Apollodorus
Na, that's what you do. I was just asking a question which you failed to answer. So let me ask again:
Do you think the invasion of Poland by Hitler and Stalin was legitimate too?
A 'yes' or 'no' should suffice.
Again the NATO and Nazi things show to be partial rationales (at best), excuses.
Have to wonder if or to what degree the Russian parliament is on-board with this stuff.
Does this look like someone who will give a f*** what his 'parliament' thinks? Anyone begs to differ, they'll be demoted or exiled before you can say 'rasputin'.
Issued on: 13/06/2022
Paris (AFP) – He was Vladimir Putin's first prime minister but Mikhail Kasyanov never in his worst nightmares imagined that his former boss would unleash a full-scale war on Ukraine.
Speaking to AFP in a video interview, Kasyanov, Russia's prime minister from 2000 to 2004, said he expected the war could last up to two years but he was convinced Russia could return to a democratic path.
The 64-year-old, who championed close ties with the West as prime minister, said that, like many other Russians, he did not believe in the weeks ahead of the war that it would actually happen.
Kasyanov only understood that Putin was not bluffing when he saw him summon the country's top leadership for a theatrical meeting of the security council three days before the invasion on February 24.
"When I saw the meeting of Russia's Security Council I realised, yes, there will be a war," Kasyanov said.
He added that he felt that Putin was already not thinking properly.
"I just know these people and by looking at them I saw that Putin is already out of it. Not in a medical sense but in political terms," he said.
"I knew a different Putin."
After being sacked by Putin, Kasyanov joined Russia's opposition and became one of the Kremlin's most vocal critics.
He is now the leader of the opposition People's Freedom party, or Parnas.
- 'Complete lawlessness' -
Kasyanov said Putin, a former KGB agent who turns 70 in October, has managed over the past 20 years to build a system based on impunity and fear.
"These are the achievements of a system that, with the encouragement of Putin as head of state, has started operating even in a more cynical, cruel manner than in the final stages of the Soviet Union," he said.
"Essentially, this is a KGB system based on complete lawlessness. It is clear that they do not expect any punishment."
Kasyanov said he had left Russia because of the war and was living in Europe but he declined to disclose his location out of concern for his safety.
His close ally and fellow opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was gunned down near the Kremlin in 2015.
Putin's best-known critic Alexei Navalny, 46, was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020 and is now in prison.
Kasyanov predicted the war could last for up to two years and said it is imperative that Ukraine win.
"If Ukraine falls, the Baltic states will be next," he said.
The outcome of the war will also determine Russia's future, he said.
Kasyanov said he "categorically" disagreed with French President Emmanuel Macron's suggestion that Putin should not be humiliated.
He also rebuffed calls for Ukraine to cede territory to end the war.
"What has Putin done to deserve this?" he said. "This is an overly pragmatic position.
"I believe this is wrong and hope that the West won't go down that path."
- 'Enormous tasks' -
Kasyanov believes Putin will eventually be replaced by a "quasi-successor" controlled by the security services.
But a successor would not be able to control the system for long and eventually Russia will stage free and fair elections, the former prime minister said.
"I am certain that Russia will return to the path of building a democratic state," he said.
He estimated it would take about a decade to conduct "de-Communisation" and "de-Putinisation" of the country.
"This will be difficult, especially after this criminal war."
He said trust would have to be re-established with European countries, which he called Russia's "natural partners".
Critics have in the past accused the Russian opposition of being hopelessly divided but Kasyanov said he was confident things would now be different.
"I have no doubt that now, after the tragedy that we are all witnessing, the opposition will unite."
Russians will face a huge task rebuilding their country, he said.
"Everything will have to be rebuilt anew. Essentially, an entire set of economic and social reforms should be started all over again.
"These are enormous and difficult tasks and they will have to be done."
Absolutely. With a super majority in the Duma, Putin has total control. United Russia is Putin's party, even if he doesn't have a prominent official role in the party.
Yes. The idea that Putin might have invaded Ukraine as a strategic move against a growing anti-Russian right-wing element or an expanding Western military influence is obviously insufficient...shaky grounds. What's clearly needed is the much more firm, down-to-earth explanation that he's been possessed by the ghost of a long dead dictator. Much more reasonable.
Can't you read or something? I said very clearly:
Quoting Apollodorus
You keep forgetting that it was Britain that declared war on Germany in 1914. So, arguably, Germany fought a defensive war that started with WW1.
In any case, the fact is that NATO was created in 1949 for the express purpose of keeping Communist Russia out of Western Europe. For exactly the same reason, Germany invaded Russia in 1941!
What makes you think it’s OK for Western Europe and America to see Communist Russia as an enemy in 1949, but not for Germany to do the same eight years earlier?
Are you saying that an independent Germany can’t see Communist Russia as an enemy in 1941, but an US-occupied Germany must do so in 1949??? :rofl:
If ethnic Russians in Ukraine are "invaders from previous periods" as you claim, then so are ethnic Poles, Lithuanians, Tatars, Austrians, Jews, and many others.
Under Polish-Lithuanian occupation, Ukraine was heavily colonized with Poles. That was exactly why the eastern half of Ukraine asked to be incorporated into Russia in the 1600's. The western half was taken by Russia from the Poles in the following century. Without Russia, Ukraine wouldn't even exist today. It would be divided between Poland-Lithuania, Austria, and Turkey.
So, obviously, you have no knowledge of the geography, history, or politics of the region. Are you sure your comments aren't written by @ssu? :rofl:
Anyway, as I said, read what proper analysts have to say and educate yourself.
This is from the Daily Beast (which I don't think is a “Putinist” publication!):
A Judgment Day Is Coming for Zelensky – Daily Beast
From what I see, Zelensky definitely seems to be either a liar or simply delusional or deranged. Before the war started, he told the world to calm down as there wasn’t going to be any invasion. When the invasion did start, he said that “the end of the world has come”. Now he’s trying to deny that he ever said anything and he’s accusing Biden of lying.
Ukraine hits back at Biden’s ‘absurd’ remark that Zelensky ‘didn’t want to hear’ US intel on Russia – The Independent
Here’s Zelensky’s statement of February 22, 2022:
“With regards to being on a military footing, we understand there will be no war. There will not be an all-out war against Ukraine, and there will not be a broad escalation from Russia. If there is, then we will put Ukraine on a war footing.”
Ukraine's President says he believes there will be no war with Russia - CNN
Even more bizarrely, Zelensky said he received a request from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to consider breaking diplomatic relations with Russia. His reply was “I will be considering this, and not only this, but also the effective actions we can take with regards to the escalation by Russia”.
In other words, (1) he denied the possibility of an invasion and (2) he failed to order any military preparations.
His main concern at the time was that talking about the possibility of an invasion would be detrimental to Ukraine’s economy! So, clearly, something is wrong with Zelensky and his government, and the matter needs to be investigated: who exactly is Zelensky, who are the people behind him, his advisers, his collaborators, the foreign interests involved???
Note how he speaks of his own foreign ministry almost as if it was some foreign power. Who exactly controls Ukraine's foreign ministry?
You mustn't forget that @Wayfarer is an old hippie from Aussieland. Some take belief in "malevolent spirits" very seriously in that part of the world ..... :smile:
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Apollodorus
I take that as a yes.
Besides, in 1941 Britain and Russia invaded Iran and divided it between themselves.
What exactly makes you think it’s OK for Britain and Russia to invade and divide Iran in 1941, but not for Germany and Russia to invade and divide Poland in 1939???
Plus, you keep forgetting that Poland itself had invaded and divided Ukraine earlier!
As I said, under Polish-Lithuanian occupation, Ukraine was heavily colonized with Poles. That was exactly why the eastern half of Ukraine asked to be incorporated into Russia in the 1600's. The western half was taken by Russia from the Poles in the following century. Without Russia, Ukraine wouldn't even exist today. It would be divided between Poland-Lithuania, Austria, and Turkey.
And anyway, how does Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 amount to “proof” that it is wrong for Russia to invade Ukraine in 2022???
You make no sense whatsoever.
Australia belonged to its indigenous Aboriginal inhabitants for 60,000 years. Then the Brits invaded in the 1700’s, massacred most of the natives and stole their land.
Recommended reading:
Massacres, human ears and a 'head collector': white atrocities against Australian Aborigines - Daily Mail
Australia continues to destroy the Aboriginals and their culture (in 2020!):
An ancient Aboriginal site was blasted away by a mining company. Here’s why that was allowed – Australian Geographic
To cover up their crimes, some Australians have apparently converted to Buddhism and are calling Putin a “malevolent spirit” to deflect attention from themselves.
IMO the reality is that the true malevolent spirit is the spirit of British Imperialism that is now animating sections of the American establishment and its client-states including Australia and England ....
I read 's comment as witty, I guess not everyone did.
Quoting Apollodorus
Who are they?
Anyway, Putin has aired his thinking, not really new or anything, has already been suggested in this thread a few times.
*sigh*
An example:
Already when I was little, the Christians around me considered me their enemy. Because I was not one of them. They unilaterally declared me their enemy. I felt no hostility toward them, I didn't consider them my enemies, but they didn't care about that. I also know they took a measure of pride in "peacefully coexisting with their enemy, ie. me". To this day, I don't consider myself their enemy, but they still insist that I am. They don't care about what I think. In their eyes, I am whatever they say that I am. Beyond that I don't exist for them.
The West has been doing the same thing to so many peoples and countries. Whether it was the native Americans, the Aboriginals, or the Russians: the Westerners unilaterally declared them to be their enemies. Regardless if the others initially felt any hostility against the Westerners or not. The perspective of the Westerners was all that matters.
People who can in fact "peacefully coexist" are not enemies to begin with.
You said as much. But the exact quote of yours is too hard to find, since the keywords are too common.
Not stereotyped, but held accountable. This could be your last chance.
You really enjoy saying such things, huh? You're willing to posit the existence of a soul, a selfhood, just so that you can enjoy in the contempt you feel for someone, and the self-righteousness.
The Russians should be more moral than the Americans because [complete the sentence].
Quoting jorndoe
What about the Chinese, the Saudis, the Aussies, the Brunei, and the Dutch?
'A joke explained is a joke lost' :groan:
Gratuitous assertions won't cut it.
The last statement does not follow from anything preceding it. That's a problem in a philosophy forum such as this one, because we philosopher-types tend to place the utmost importance upon logical well-founded conclusions. That's not one of them.
You've met some immoral people who called themselves "Christian". Not all Christians are like that.
So, assuming sincerity in speech, others used the phrase "peacefully co-existing with their enemies" to talk about you in the ways you clearly described above. Thanks for that, by the way. It helped me to personally be able to make sense out of the responses you've given. But...
Not everyone who uses those words has the same moral/ethical standards(means the same thing when putting the phrase into practice). I cannot blame you for having bad feelings about the phrase or towards those Christians as a result of that. However, if you go back and look, I explained clearly what I meant by "peacefully co-existing with one's enemies".
What I meant is nothing like what those self-proclaimed "Christians" meant.
Because I'm a generally honest person who's led the life I have, you may be interested to know that I can personally relate to you and others who've been subject to inconsiderate treatment by others. It seems you are one of us and I, one of you. Many of those situations and sets of circumstances helped to shape the clay into the man that I am today. To this day, I can still remember many of those events, although the crispness has blurred considerably over the decades. No one ought have to go through anything like what you've described above.
And thus...
It's just fine if Putin does the same...
:zip:
Not everyone living in the "west" fits into your preconceived notion of "Westerners".
The sheer number of nations, communities, and individuals around the world that are currently and/or historically guilty of totally unacceptable behaviors exactly as you've described above is far too numerous to cherry pick "Westerners". Humans in general have had to fight for their very lives with other humans throughout human history. Humans were often our own mortal enemies.
We're no longer living in those archaic times. We are interdependent social creatures, and we've no choice in the matter. We know this.
Here's the underlying problem in a nutshell:The obsession of obtaining wealth and an abundance of resources by whatever means necessary is not just a "western problem".
Although, at the heart of it all, I would tend to agree that American culture in general permits, perpetuates, and continues to cultivate treating others with unnecessarily harmful open baseless(tribalesque) contempt, personal inconsideration, and public ridicule, and that is likely an ethical/moral vestige stemming from what you've outlined...
Oh yeah, and I am most certainly not a Christian. I'm agnostic on matters like the origin of the universe.
You spoke of peaceful coexistence with one's enemy, which was understood as a critique of Mr Putin. Hence you must be the enemy, and you deserve to be buried under an avalanche of shitposts.
Nonsense. Killing a few thousand (most of them in combat) out of 40 million is NOT "the same" at all.
Plus, Ukraine used to be part of Russia. Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine were one country with the capital at Kiev and called "Russian Land" (?????????? ?????, Rusiskae Zemle) or short, Rus. "Rus" or "Russian" was the ethnonym used by all three populations to refer to themselves (see Wikipedia, Kievan Rus). No resemblance whatsoever to what happened in Australia!
Fact is, Russia’s demands were absolutely clear and IMO legitimate:
To Ukraine:
Recognize Crimea as Russian.
Recognize ethnic-Russian Donetsk and Luhansk as independent republics.
Declare neutrality.
To NATO:
Roll back from Eastern Europe.
Stay out of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s and NATO’s answer was “no”. Therefore, Ukraine and the West consciously chose war. Therefore, they must acknowledge their share of responsibility for the conflict.
IMO, the only thing that remains to be established is how much responsibility the West should acknowledge. Many analysts believe the West bears most of the responsibility, given that the conflict arose from NATO expansion (proposed by NATO in the early 1990’s and promised to Ukraine in 2008).
Quoting Wayfarer
Agreed. But if it was just a "joke", why did @jorndoe feel a need to offer his services as your lawyer? :smile:
Creativesoul: I'm not a Christian. Therefore, I'm right.
Baker: I'm not a Buddhist. Therefore, I'm right.
Wayfarer: I'm a Buddhist. Therefore I'm right.
:grin:
It strains credulity to argue Russia’s actions are legitimate.
They’re not legitimate nor moral, nor intelligent for that matter. This was and is a stupid, immoral, illegitimate move on Russia’s part. Regardless of pretext— which every person or state will give to justify their crimes.
I share your view that the West (the US) has greatly contributed to this war. But to go as far as to claim Russian legitimacy is overkill.
I don't think there is any law at that level of action. That would require a global government.
There is the UN Charter, as well as various treaties and conventions, eg the Geneva conventions.
There's no enforcement of any of that, though. We could say Russia broke an agreement, but would you say they acted illegally?
Not on victors, you are right, but there is often some enforcement on losers, as was the case in Nuremberg. In this particular case, if Russia loses the war it might well have to pay reparations, if found guilty of starting it by the Hague or some other international court.
Your position can be summed up here nicely.
Throughout history all sorts of nations have wrongfully imposed themselves upon others and stole their shit(including their autonomy), therefore it's okay if Russia does the same to Ukraine or everyone's a hypocrit.
The resemblance of Russia's current actions to others' throughout history is that Russia - like others - are forcing themselves onto another people, and stealing their shit(including their autonomy) against the will of those people.
Your claims of historical Russian boundaries is being used to justify current actions. Arbitrary points in time. Go back farther, use the same logic, and we'd be forced to give the land back to the first settlers.
Neanderthal ?
I just think of law as something everyone is subject to. There's no enforcing body in that sense.
No universal one, no.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/SalehaMohsin/status/1536797238340603904[/tweet]
Well, to me, this only demonstrates that you guys have zero interest in objectivity and truth.
If you’re saying that I said countries should be “given back to the Neanderthals”, then that’s a deliberate distortion or lie.
What I did say, very clearly and repeatedly, is that every country and continent should belong to its rightful owners.
I also said that (1) this must be applied on the merits of each particular case, (2) no one says it must be applied by force of arms, and (3) nor can force or threat of force (or violence) be ruled out.
In other words, the principle should be applied if, when, and to the extent that, it is feasible.
I even gave concrete examples: Tibet, annexed by China in 1951, should be returned to the Tibetan people; North Cyprus, invaded and occupied by Turkey in 1974, should be returned to the Cypriots; Kurdistan, occupied by Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, should be returned to the Kurds.
These are very well-known and clear-cut cases that IMO even ignorant and unthinking pro-NATO activists can understand.
Four million Finns have an oversized country to live in. In contrast, forty million Kurds have no state of their own and are being suppressed, attacked, murdered, and jailed by the Turkish government on a daily basis. Yet Kurds that resist Turkish occupation and atrocities against their own people are labeled “terrorists” by the same Western powers, including NATO, that are opposed to Russia taking back Crimea and the Donbas.
Though Tibet’s annexation by China and Cyprus’ occupation by Turkey have never been recognized by the UN, the UN is doing absolutely nothing about it, and even less about Kurdistan. The only UN member that supports an independent Kurdistan is Israel, and even that is limited to Iraqi Kurdistan, leaving out most of Kurdish territory that is under Turkish occupation.
The fact is that the UN, and the US-created world order in general, is not an order based on justice but on self-interest. By definition, it pushes the agenda of those member states that have the most power and influence, from the US down. Those that are at the bottom of the system, e.g. the Kurds, have absolutely no rights and no say.
And nope, Russia’s annexation of Crimea is not even remotely similar to Brits taking Australia from the Aboriginals. If anything, the conflict in Ukraine is more like a civil war within what historically has been one country, i.e. Russia.
In any case, your concept of “justice” seems to be worse than risible …. :grin:
:up:
I’m not sure why I was tagged in this response, since nothing I said was addressed. So I’ll repeat what I said, in case you want another chance to do so: to argue Russia’s actions are legitimate is absurd.
To do so also undermines the fact of the very real and very immoral role the US (and, therefore, NATO) has played in this crime.
Given this forum's political leanings one might expect a lot more understanding for this course of action.
Proves nothing more than you have no idea what you’re talking about.
The world is a very different place today than it ever was before, the Ukraine war is unique in these ways. We must include this in our analysis or it will lead to incorrect conclusions. Yes, some things don't change but much has and more change is a given. This talk of what happened 50-400 years ago is stupid, start looking around you instead of backwards. I don't think Putin is as interested in history as he makes it out, I believe these are useful tools for stoking nationalism and creating scapegoats and threats. But even if he was, that is Putin's prerogative, it doesn't make it right. The past, and also the present is filled with examples of being super flawed. We've got new tools now that allow the vast majority of people to have a different and previously unattainable perspective. Better to make use of that and do something new.
If they would redistribute with the welfare of everyone in mind, they would be our heroes.
What a load of bullshit.
And because basically started this war in 2014, there wasn't any strategic surprise, which would had to be had to pull this special military operation in the first place.
Hmmm...
I don't think anybody here thinks it was OK to invade Iran.
Yet neither country annexed Iran. Iran actually later took out the Soviet puppet state.
And oh, not every fifth Iranian died because of the invasion, like what happened to the Polish.
Well, not necessarily. If the US and its NATO Empire “have played a very real role”, then they may well have caused the conflict, either partly or wholly.
We mustn't forget that Zelensky was backed by dodgy media tycoons and oligarchs and was a media man himself. If I had the Western media on my side and got zillions of dollars from America like Zelensky has, I would probably have the best and most "credible" propaganda in the world.
The way I see it, the whole point of philosophy – and of common sense in general – is to look beyond appearances. Unfortunately, some seem to be stuck at an a priory level where they allow NATO’s anti-Russian jihadi mythology to shape their perception of reality without making the slightest attempt to look into the truth of it.
One major problem with NATO seems to be that it hypocritically gives its members free hand to deal with their ethnic minorities as they please (see Turkey’s treatment of Kurds), while using minorities in non-NATO countries to create division and conflict as part of established divide-and-rule policy (see Albanians in Yugoslavia).
That’s exactly what the West has been doing in Ukraine and even in Russia where it has encouraged separatism and opposition to the central government for decades.
So, arguably, the Ukraine conflict is a logical, and entirely predictable, consequence of US-NATO expansion and meddling in other nations’ affairs.
The Pope himself has said that the danger is that we only see what is on the surface and “not the whole drama that is unfolding behind this war, which was perhaps in some way either provoked or not prevented. And I register an interest in testing and selling weapons. Basically, this is what is at stake".
Ukraine war 'perhaps in some way either provoked or not prevented,' says Pope Francis – CNN
IMO the Pope seems to understand political philosophy, and philosophy in general, much better than the pro-NATO political activists on here.
In any case, he’s got a degree in philosophy and is highly respected by millions around the world. His views shouldn’t be uncritically dismissed on a philosophy forum.
Quoting creativesoul
Something isn’t “bullshit” just because you say so. Perhaps you’ve run out of arguments. If you had any in the first place, that is. :wink:
Quoting ssu
The issue wasn't "how many died" but the legitimacy of the invasion!
And, of course, you just "happen" to forget to count how many Ukrainians died as a result of Polish invasions and occupation. You also "happen" to forget that it was the Ukrainians that asked to be incorporated into the Russian Empire to escape the Poles .... :grin:
I think that's much easier said than done. And, funny enough, it's the pro-NATO camp that keeps bringing history into it by constantly equating Putin with Stalin, Hitler, or when that fails, with the Czars.
But when the other side mentions history, all of a sudden it's "Oh, no, you can't do that!"
Plus, in order to determine the legitimacy or otherwise of territorial claims, for example Crimea, you can't avoid looking at the history of it. No rational person would turn to Twitter or TikTok to decide on matters of this kind. :smile:
What are we discussing really?
Who are the 'good guys' and who are the 'bad guys'?
What international law says about this?
What the best courses of action are for both sides?
What are the most likely outcomes?
Ethical principles?
This thread is an unconstructive mess.
See the OP. It's a general discussion on the crisis. Yes, that makes it very messy. On the positive side, the mess is pretty much limited to this thread. As for unconstructive, welcome to pretty much every political discussion ever, unfortunately.
So in addition to having sent troops to Somalia to protect their precious oil assets, the US now continues to deploy troops in Yemen to help the Saudis continue their genocide. I wonder - what will be the final ratio of countries invaded by the US compared to Russia by the time the war in Ukraine ends, if it does end? We're at - at least - 2:1 right now. Maybe 5:1 for the final tally?
I guess if we count US troops fucking around in Syria with their ISIS pals, we could call the ratio 2.5:1.
I wonder if the number of people these American troops will murder - that is all they exist for - will ever be reported for the sake of the kind of atrocity porn that Westerners so lavishly lap-up in the case of Ukraine.
Maybe this thread is a constructive mess, or as constructive as a mess can be. A number of positions have been thoroughly argued for and against. Not in philosophical terms so far, that is true, and with a lot of anger in the conversation. But you are welcome to chip in and help better define the terms of engagement.
Nobody else but you are giving legitimacies over invasions and annexations. Neither the invasion of Poland or the invasion of Iran is legitimate. It's very rare that we can argue that some invasion was legitimate.
Quoting Apollodorus
...to refer everything that has happened in history. Right.
In my mind history isn't at all ethical. And those seeking justifications for starting wars or defending them can go to hell.
Let me pick just for example this. @Baden is totally right, pretty much any political discussion is as messy as this.
How about starting to answer your question with the UN charter, article 4:
see Charter of the United Nations
So you can try to talk about what the international law says about this, and I think I know what the response will be: counterarguments on other events / issues / countries and accusations that you're hypocritical by ignoring these, because you are focusing on a thread about the Ukraine war on the war in Ukraine.
That's what makes this thread "messy".
We're humans before we're citizens of any nation. And humans are always killing each other over things like territory, ideology and resources and making up all kinds of justifications for it. Your error is thinking that sometimes it's okay, that sometimes two wrongs make a right. All European nations have a history of wrongdoing, but as I said, the world is changing at an unbelievable rate. It's not that what Russia is doing is worse than what other nations have done or are doing, it's that this type of war, in this type of era, is going to be condemned worse than wars in previous eras ever could be. You can point out what other nations have done X decades/centuries ago and say it's not worse and be correct, but you're not talking about the most important factor which is that this war is happening in 2022 and those events did not.
I'm not telling you that you can't talk about history, as though it's immoral to do so or something. I don't know why others bother to engage with you on this kind of historical tit-for-tat, I've got no interest in that. If one person gets away with murder, should the next person accused be automatically acquitted? These are all different subjects, if you want to make a tier list of horrible wars then go ahead but they're still all immoral, don't think it has much to do with this topic.
We can't have a debate if one person is discussing ethics, another is discussing law and yet another is discussing practical steps to get out of this mess, and each engages with each other's arguments from entirely different view points.
Lumping everything together into one abomination of anger in text certainly isn't helping to turn these discussions into something productive.
Quoting Apollodorus
Not only don’t I “dismiss” them, I hold them.
One can’t read everything in such a large thread. But I suggest you go back and read anything I’ve written. To argue I’m in the “pro-NATO” camp is untrue, and lazy.
Notice I’m not dismissing you as “pro-Putin.” That would be equally childish. I take issue with your claim that Russia’s actions were legitimate.
That sounds like an admission that some invasions ARE legitimate! :grin:
Quoting ssu
No, NOT "everything". From what I see, your tendency seems to be to "forget" historical events that undermine your argument, but selectively remember events you think support it.
Quoting ssu
No one said history is ethical. My point was that in order to establish the legitimacy or otherwise of an action, you need to look at the past actions that preceded it, i.e. at HISTORY. This is normal practice in national law as much as in international relations
Quoting Judaka
If many persons get away with murder, then (a) your system can't claim to be consistent or just and (b) you need to explain why you make an exception.
Pakistan invaded Indian Kashmir, China invaded Tibet, Turkey invaded Cyprus, Turkey continues to invade Kurdish territories (with NATO approval!), forty million Kurds continue to have no state of their own, etc., etc. ....
As I've repeatedly said, it looks like the principle governing the current world order is that "might is right" and that something is "legitimate" (or at least "acceptable") by virtue of its serving the interests of America and its EU-NATO empire.
Quoting Tzeentch
Correct. Some seem to believe that getting angry and calling other people names somehow "proves" that they are "right". As if the proof of philosophy wasn't reason but emotion. "I emote, therefore, I'm right" seems to be the absolute apogee of media-induced (and -approved) thought these days .... :smile:
Quoting Xtrix
My comment referred to the "pro-NATO camp" in general. Whether you personally belong to it, is a separate issue.
Quoting Xtrix
Well, I'm glad to hear that ....
Heh. This year, June 6 went by, no mention of the Invasion of Normandy. Normally in the time around June 6, national televisions show documentaries about D-Day, the daily film is "Saving Private Ryan", and such. But not this year.
*sigh*
Talk about bad faith. You look to interpret my words in such a way as to make them easily dismissable.
I use the term "Westerner" in a cultural sense, not a geographical one. I've explained that more than once.
Except the Ukrainians and those who support them.
Quoting creativesoul
But you do. It's exactly what you do, what the whole anti-Russian propaganda is doing. Long, long ago, they unilaterally declared the Russians to be the enemy.
How ironic, coming from someone who wishes his country would join an organization that exists for one purpose only: war.
Basic principles of morality.
I must say that many NATO supporters act like this is the end of history. As though no future generations will look back at this time and view it as negatively as we do of the times preceding ours. This is very wrong, our world is filled with injustices and Western nations are part of it. Humans will indeed look back at this time as backward. If your purpose was to show that Russia is not the only backward nation, I'd support you but instead, you seek to use the backwardness of others to defend Putin.
Look at the Vietnam War, the US public was lied to constantly and misled on every issue, and the Afghanistan war and Iraqi wars are no different. Similarly, the Russian public seems to support Putin because of the effectiveness of his propaganda. This is an unfortunate situation but one day we'll see it change. One can not expect people to have a deep understanding of every war, nor blame them for having an incorrect understanding taught to them by a biased system.
Anyway, you are clearly determined, history is large, and we can point a magnifying glass where we want, to create the stories we want to create. There is no truth and really no value to this kind of talk. Is your goal to call everyone wrong? Or to find a way to call Putin's actions legitimate? Tbh I don't really care, my view on this issue can't be changed by talking about history, because it's seriously out-of-date. This war has the potential to be revolutionary, we will need to see how future major wars are covered but, it is clear that the grip of Western mainstream media and governments is loosening. This will hopefully make wars like the US-Vietnamese or US-Iraqi war more difficult to pull off, and governments will receive the criticism they deserve.
From what can be seen here, I don't think the grip of Western media and governments is "loosening" at all. Quite the reverse, actually.
Quoting Judaka
Well, that's where you're demonstrating your unexamined anti-Russian bias again!
Russians don't see things differently "because of the effectiveness of Putin's propaganda". They see things differently because they're Russians and have a different history from yours. Russians have always seen Crimea as Russian and Ukraine as a sister nation together with Belarus.
This view is supported by history which shows that Russia proper, Belarus ("White Russia"), and Ukraine ("Russian Borderland"), were one country called Russia or Rus (see Wikipedia, Kievan Rus). They only became separated because of foreign invasion and occupation.
Obviously, this fact is inconvenient to the Western narrative according to which Crimea belongs to Ukraine, Ukraine belongs to NATO, and NATO belongs to America. But to claim that Russians don't have a history and that everything is "Putin's propaganda" (presumably, even Wikipedia articles!) is too preposterous for anyone to take seriously.
Quoting baker
Correct. Zelensky says Russia is “repeating the Holocaust”, the West is saying that Putin wants to “recreate the Russian Empire”, analysts are comparing the fighting in Ukraine to “WW1”, etc., etc.
It doesn't matter that many who know history better than Zelensky disagree with his equating Russia's invasion with the Holocaust:
President Zelensky: Stop invoking the Holocaust - Jerusalem Post
Regardless of reality, history is being reshaped to fit the politically-convenient, media-dictated narrative of the day that justifies, promotes, and glorifies America's imperialist new world order.
Joe Biden talks about 'new world order' in Business Roundtable address - YouTube
And, lest we forget, some would have us believe that Putin is "animated by Stalin's malevolent spirit" .... :grin:
Allies halting at the borders of the Third Reich...because of the sovereignty of Nazi Germany is one of those questions of some invasions. Of course, it is needles to say (except for you), that Germany invaded Poland, which started WW2.
Quoting baker
Well, we don't have a 1340km border with Canada.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Quoting Apollodorus
Showing that brotherly love now to your sister, right?
Then stop complaining about Russia.
Of course, it is needless to say (except for you), that Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939 has got absolutely nothing to do with Russia invading Ukraine in 2022! :rofl:
Plus, you keep "forgetting" Poland's invasion and occupation of Ukraine before that.
And, of course, you "forgot" to answer my point. Are there any legitimate invasions or not???
Quoting ssu
You're becoming delusional again. Ukraine isn't "my sister" anymore than it is yours! :rofl:
Plus, you "forget" that Americans didn't treat one another any better in the Civil War. This may be news to you, but in the real world, brothers (and sisters) do fight.
I was talking (a) in historical terms and (b) in response to @Judaka's suggestion that Russia's views of Crimea and Ukraine are shaped by "Putin's propaganda".
What NATO activists and jihadis (and other ignoramuses) fail to comprehend is that Putin's views of Ukraine are shaped by the long-established (and historically-supported) views of the Russian people, not the other way round!
Quoting baker
:up:
I don't think Putin is the idiot you make him out to be... someone who cares nothing for strategy, who only wants land because Russia used to own it. Russians both think of Ukraine as a sister nation but accept it's reasonable to invade the country for land? That doesn't make much sense to me. I think you are being silly, but you are clearly determined and I am confident a discussion about this with you will go nowhere. If you want to argue about history and pretend it's all that matters, you may, but with others.
Well, of course, it wouldn't make much sense to you if (a) you ignore history and (b) you refuse to think your argument through.
Russians do indeed see Ukraine as a sister nation, but one who has joined the West against Russia. In other words, a traitor. It doesn't say anywhere that a sister nation (or its government) can't be seen as a turncoat.
I understand this very post could be seen as a snide remark, but it's an attempt to understand what motivates posters to be rude, some far more than others.
Quoting baker
Are we, though?
Then what moral actors' actions are we discussing here? Putin's? Biden's? Those of every individual engaged in the war?
That either sounds like it would be overly simplistic or unimaginably complicated.
But then you immediately continue...
Quoting Apollodorus
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
If we follow upon the observation made by Collingwood in his Essay – that people are often ‘ticklish’ about their metaphysics, and all the more so when such metaphysics remains unexplored and unconscious in them – it could be that the reason why this thread has so much verbal violence on display is NOT that it is merely a political thread (hence non philosophical) but on the contrary, that we are circling around a deeply metaphysical question, that hasn’t been teased out yet.
Maybe something like: is there justice in this world? Is there even room for hope in this matter? Is some sort of just world peace worth aiming for, and on what basis, or is history destined to be an absurd tragedy without rhyme nor reason?
Looked at that way, we'd be approaching reality in a dangerously sober manner. The fighting and killing is over whose truth/lies justice/barbarism becomes history.
What is pathetic is instead the pre-pathologization of anyone who is critical of NATO, as if one could not, except by dint of moral failure, be critical of an organization that has been responsible for mass murder on an inter-continental scale. This is dangerous, dogmatic bullshit pretending to pass itself off as patronizing concern.
It's also pretty funny coming from someone whose post history in this thread is littered with jeers made for infants.
And your point is???
If a sister is a turncoat it doesn't follow that she ceases to be a sister. As a matter of fact, many Russians and Ukrainians still see each other as family, even now. Some literally so, as they have relatives on both sides.
In any case, ordinary Ukrainians are intelligent enough to understand that the conflict is the creation of politicians and they wish their leaders could just shake hands and make peace.
Of course, low-intelligence NATO jihadis and bots are a different matter .... :wink:
I think either he's using multiple accounts or he was delivered in the same discount pack of three as ssu and Christoffer. As I said, the CIA may have the technology, but not the intelligence. And even the technology is probably made in China from parts made in North Korea or Pakistan .... :grin:
And just when in your thinking the Ukrainians become these turncoats who ceased to be sisters and deserved the "special military operation"?
Yes, that's perhaps even closer to it.
I agree that it is 'dangerous' in a way: a lot is a stake, in the real world. That too factors in the general acrimonious tone I think.
In other words, your own pronouncements are the only "non-shit and non-trash" ones here, or just "less shit and less trash" than those of others? :grin:
I've explained that already. Read people's comments or go study some history!
And while you're at it, I think you should get out of your WW1 bunker for a change and acquaint yourself with some real facts instead of swallowing your own propaganda:
This is from the European Council on Foreign Relations:
Peace versus Justice: The coming European split over the war in Ukraine – ECFR
Clearly, in the real world, NATO jihadis are a small, and diminishing, minority. This may explain why they're so frustrated and angry …. :grin:
Well, as long as you keep referencing your sources, we can better assess how shitty your posts are. :rofl: Thanks for helping us! :grin:
Well, let's see ....
Mark Leonard: Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, former Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geoeconomics. Essays published in Foreign Affairs, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, El Pais, Gazeta Wyborcza, Foreign Policy, the New Statesman, the Daily Telegraph, The Economist, Time, Newsweek.
Ivan Krastev: Member of Open Society Foundations’ global advisory board, former executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans, editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian edition of Foreign Policy. Awarded the Jean Améry Prize for European essay writing.
ECFR: named "Best New Think Tank in the World" for 2009 and 2010 by the University of Pennsylvania's annual Global "Go-To Think-Tanks" report.
neomac: ............................................ ????
So, yeah. You've definitely "proved" your "point"! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
As if you got my point! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
But do carry on with your shitty rebuttals, by all means :grin:
I think you're rebutting your own "point" quite nicely. So, you're laughing at yourself ....
Quoting Olivier5
On the contrary, I think it's been not only teased out, but spread all over the place:
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Streetlight
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting Streetlight
Quoting neomac
Sounds very much like anger and frustration to me. Induced by lack of social life and too much pro-NATO propaganda .... :grin:
The 'stakes' being US hegemony, which is worth as much global death and suffering as required for its maintenance.
Who will find the best legend for it? :-)
"And then they suck your brains out through your ear."
I'm open to improvement. What do you suggest? Russian-Chinese hegemony, or perhaps free-for-all regional conflicts throughout the planet, either of which destroying and subjugating all weaker nations including yours?
Those are two things. War and genocide is in the blood of the species. What we should hope for there is limited curtailment of this drive in favor of cooperation, an example of which is the European Union.
The power of the corporations is distributed as in a pyramid. Supermarket chains have more power the local green grocer or bakery. Starting at the top of the pyramid, braking up of mega corporations in the name of maintaining national capitalist competitive goals has been done in the past. Would you settle for that?
No, they aren't. And it takes living in a state as fed by blood as the US to think they are. Look, none of this is very thread relevant, so I'll leave you to it.
--
Anyway, it's adorable that the response to "the US is willing to starve and destroy global livelihoods for the sake of it's hegemony" is "yeah buutttt what you youuuu do"? Brain rot.
Bertrand Russell, Promise Freedom to India after War with Japan, Bombay Chronicle, 10 March 1945
When a philosopher's vision extends over several centuries, one must not quibble if his predictions are a little slow in coming to complete fruition. I suspect that Russia is not included in Russel's 'domination of the White Man', but is part of 'the rest of the world'. And I suspect he had not given enough scrutiny to the American White Man either.
Yep. Marry your mother if you can, or your semi-mummified school teacher, if that fails .... :grin:
Quoting Olivier5
“Damn it! He’s had too much Italian garlic and Chinese frogs (AGAIN)!”
Quoting Streetlight
Wars can be unpredictable. America’s current pharaoh may yet become the biggest collateral casualty of his jihad on Russia. Right now, the Saudis have him by his cojones and no one knows how long he’s going to last. Probably, not as long as Putin?
Biden on Gas Prices: Bashing Exxon Profits, Meeting With Saudi Prince – Business Insider
Not only he’s fallen off his bike, but more voters are now willing to vote for Trump than for Sleepy Joe who, let’s face it, will soon be asleep for good:
Poll: Biden disapproval hits new high as more Americans say they would vote for Trump
Meanwhile, Russia has got a large pile of foreign currency and gold reserves, as well as emergency funds. It has reduced to a minimum its foreign debt and its dependence on foreign borrowing, and it has become a net creditor on international money markets. That’s why America hates Russia, because it doesn’t depend on US banks and can't be blackmailed into submission to US rule!
If Russia keeps developing its industries for key technologies, especially in the defense sector, it will not only do just fine, but it can even come out of this stronger.
IMO Russia is becoming a key challenger of American hegemony and should be supported by all who are against an US-controlled unipolar world order (or world government by Big Oil, Big Bucks, and Big Guns).
Quoting unenlightened
I don't see why it should be. Russia has been there since prehistoric times. White America and Australia were imported from other parts of the world.
Only the skin colour.
The basic principles of morality are what is at stake here. They are what underlies every individual assessment, every individual response, every post.
Discussed directly instead through particular examples, what some people have as their first principles of morality would be too egregious to state.
The pull of political discussion is that it allows people to express their first principles of morality indirectly, and thus still feel the pleasure of doing something that would sometimes be unacceptable in polite society.
People need to learn the worth of life and property, because they have clearly either forgotten that, or never learned it to begin with.
But, of course, this isn't likely going to happen, at least not anytime soon.
As things stand, people generally defend their egos, and they do so with their lives and property, and the lives and property of others.
Yay, better to die proud, than do something that would actually protect one's life and property!!
History is repeating itself. People watched on as Nazism grew, and did nothing.
At least, our modern Hitler failed his Anschluss. That's something to celebrate.
Indeed. (Of course the 2014 annexation of Crimea can be seen as the Anschluss part)
Well, the atmosphere is partly like the US of 1939-1941. Back then the German leader had those who "understood" him and saw the culprits somewhere else. What comes to mind is the anti-interventionist cause very popular back then before Pearl Harbour and the declaration of war by Hitler against the US.
In September 11th 1941 Charles Lindberg gave a speech in Des Moines, basically some weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbour is telling about these views:
And of course in hindsight, what he tells about the Jewish doesn't look good now at all:
After Hitler declared war against the US, Charles Lindbergh fell to be a persona-non-grata. No matter that he did participate as a fighter pilot in WW2 in the Pacific Theatre, his reputation was quite tarnished.
But the above just shows how difficult it was to be openly against nazism prior and even after the war had started. And how much "opposing nazism" was that bad foreign policy.
Good point.
Professor Mearsheimer has reiterated his known perspective on the Russo-Ukrainian war. After his presentation, an interesting discussion encompassed a spectrum of the most significant views and positions. In the end, to defend the narrative of blaming NATO and the US actions as the primary cause of the war, Mearsheimer was forced to lean on his academic
competence and reputation. Yet, remarkably, no one tried to dispute the professor’s concluding remarks regarding the possible devastating scenarios and the affiliated risks.
Nobel peace prize auctioned by Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, raises record $103.5m for Ukrainian child refugees
Muratov, who was awarded the gold medal in October 2021, said proceeds would go to Unicef to help children displaced by Ukraine war.
Tue 21 Jun 2022 01.27 BST
The Nobel Peace Prize that Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov was auctioning off to raise money for Ukrainian child refugees has sold for $103.5m (£84.5m), shattering the record for a Nobel.
“I was hoping that there was going to be an enormous amount of solidarity,” Muratov said after the sale. “But I was not expecting this to be such a huge amount.”
Previously, the most ever paid for a Nobel prize medal was in 2014, when James Watson, whose co-discovery of the structure of DNA earned him a Nobel prize in 1962, sold his medal for $4.76m. Three years later, the family of his co-recipient, Francis Crick, received $2.27m in bidding run by Heritage Auctions, the same company that auctioned off Muratov’s medal on Monday, World Refugee Day.
Muratov, who was awarded the gold medal in October 2021, helped found the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and was the publication’s editor-in-chief when it shut down in March amid the Kremlin’s clampdown on journalists and public dissent in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It was Muratov’s idea to auction off his prize, having already announced he was donating the accompanying $500,000 cash award to charity. The idea of the donation, he said, “is to give the children refugees a chance for a future”
Muratov has said the proceeds will go directly to Unicef in its efforts to help children displaced by the war in Ukraine. Melted down, the 175 grams of 23-karat gold contained in Muratov’s medal would be worth about $10,000.
:brow:
Good one!
I'm going to bed...alone...as usual. Don't wake me up unless you have some good news! Rip Van Winkle :yawn:
If Ukraine becomes a member of the European Union while it is still at war with Russia, this would seem to bring war between NATO and Russia closer. Yet, NATO is a defensive alliance and the war in Ukraine is not a basis for invoking Article 5 as long as no NATO countries are directly attacked.
Is Ukraine becoming part of the EU realistic? Will it change anything? How likely is military intervention and thus escalation in Ukraine by NATO or European countries?
It will take some time, like a few years. At worst a few decades.
Miles to go before I sleep
And more today from Slavoj (that famously neoliberal / imperial apologist) Žižek:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/pacificsm-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-war-in-ukraine
I sometimes find him entertaining. But he is not a serious scholar, there are many instances of pretty BAD scholarship in his work, with very sloppy reasoning, which should put one on guard.
Interesting that in the subtitle, "We need a stronger nato", is very badly argued.
I don't know. I don't think nuclear annihilation is worth it, even if it may come off as cowardly.
One of his worst articles in a long while.
Thanks for sharing.
:roll:
What the hell is he talking about?
Yeah, saw my mistake and changed it right away. It is a misleading subtitle nonetheless.
Which is all very good. But who supplies most of the weapons in NATO? Who controls the vast majority of budget in NATO? It's not Europe. This article does not show how Europe should proceed to become "autocratic".
One thing is to follow the remarks made by Merkel, that Europe should have it's own defense and foreign policy. That makes sense.
But that's not what Europe is doing, it's simply expanding US controlled NATO, by rendering countries with less control of whatever foreign policy they had.
That's rather the point. Sorry, independence rather than autocracy. poor choice of words. Zezek is pointing out that the left gains by global cooperation, and so must be in favour of ejecting Russia from Ukraine, while a the same time rejecting US control of NATO.
Pretty much what you seem to be advocating.
US support for Ukraine could easily drop to nothing in 2024. I'm guessing Europe would follow, for the most part.
Europe definitely needs to have its own foreign policy and defense.
The point, so far as the US is concerned, is to weaken Russia as much as possible, paying for it with Ukrainian lives, not just dollars.
Nevertheless, this might well be a game of who "blinks" first. Either there is a miscalculation and Russia goes crazy, or it exhausts itself and demolishes all of Ukraine and decides to leave. It's not a good gamble.
But you are correct. The US (nor any major country, let's be honest) cared about Ukraine, until this war happened. Now they are getting the support victims should get.
But as soon as the objectives are completed, I don't think the US (meaning the military and the high echelons of power) will care much about Ukraine.
Hope I'm wrong.
I think that more so than most wars in recent history, this war is about personalities more than about states.
It's Zelensky backed by Biden against Putin. Subtract Biden, and it's just Zelensky versus Putin with a disorganized world watching from the sidelines.
Biden doesn't want a weak Russia. He wants regime change. That's blatantly obvious. And blaming the US for the deaths of Ukrainians is despicable in my opinion.
If Republicans take the presidency in 2024, they will likely withdraw support from Ukraine.
Not just the US, if that makes you feel better, Europe too. Send as many weapons as possible, care virtually nothing about diplomatic negotiations (minus France, and initially, Germany) and let the war continue as long as possible.
With the Republicans, it's a gamble. If Trump wins again, maybe? Then again, you've surely seen comments by members of the House saying to "call Putin's bluff". Yeah, ok. Neither party is good here at all.
If they cared about Ukrainian lives prior to the war, they would have agreed to implement the MINSK II agreements, and avoid all of this, which has been warned about for decades now, never mind Putin.
It is despicable, but it is also a fact. That's how power works.
No doubt support for Ukraine is prolonging the war, but the primary cause of its duration is Putin. The reason there have been no negotiations is again, Putin.
Quoting Manuel
That the US is responsible for Ukrainian deaths? I disagree. I believe the cause is Putin.
Since before 2014 the Russian red line has been that Ukraine must stay neutral, independent and demilitarized.
In your view, have the United States and the European Union have been willing to accept this compromise?
I'm not sure why you call it a compromise, but the answer is no.
It's a compromise because the United States and the European Union obviously want to add Ukraine to their political spheres - something which is unacceptable to Russia.
Since, according to your own words, the US and the EU are unwilling to accept any compromise here, how can you argue Putin is the reason why there are no negotiations?
I'm personally quite comfortable with taking side, in this case and in many others where there's a clear aggressor. There's no moral symmetry that I can see here.
So how did you determine that there was a 'clear aggressor' prior to such taking sides?
The symmetry is between the way you see it and the way your opponents see it. But to be comfortable with war is assuredly to be a good long way from it. One may have to choose a side, one may have to fight, but to find it comfortable is unconscionable.
Is it your interpretation that Mearsheimer's theory hinges on whether or not Putin is capable of lying?
The US and the EU are simply willing to admit Ukraine as a member and ally. They have not proposed to force Ukraine to do anything, so I don't see how any "compromise" has been made.
Quoting Tzeentch
I was talking about negotiations to end the conflict. That is between Russia and Ukraine. Neither the US not the EU is actively fighting Russia.
And they have publicly expressed a desire to make it so, and actively taken steps to make that a reality. (See Mearsheimer's talk)
Quoting Tate
The United States and European Union are involved in Ukraine, not just politically but also militarily. I don't think you're disputing that.
However, despite the world's largest military and economic power in the world, the United States, being intimately involved in Ukraine, you believe a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Russia is a realistic solution to this conflict?
Why are you deciding that military action constitutes force, but economic pressure, diplomatic pressure, intelligence operations and bribery do not?
Quoting Tate
Why have you decided that the supply of weapons, training and intelligence is insufficient to generate a duty to seek a negotiated settlement?
I don't know. The death of Putin might be the only path to peace
I would recommend watching that talk by Mearsheimer. He presents a historical context that goes back to the Bush administration.
Russia is not a great power.
Regardless, whether or not you consider Russia is a great power isn't relevant to the point I'm making - a point which you seem to be avoiding.
Russia is not a great power, so there is no "great power conflict" here. If it was, then Obama wouldn't have had the option to ignore Russia in 2014.
One might almost get the impression you're desperately trying to find something to disagree with, so you can avoid talking substance, just like .
How about we rephrase it to "geopolitical conflict"?
Or do you also disagree that such a thing is taking place in Ukraine?
The reason being that a great power conflict is very different from the average geopolitical conflict.
Quoting Tzeentch
Definitely.
Quoting Tate
Then what impact would Putin's death have on the geopolitical factors that underlie the conflict in Ukraine?
He is what underlies the conflict.
You just stated what is happening in Ukraine is a geopolitical conflict. Now you imply that it is not geopolitical factors that caused the conflict in Ukraine, but the sole person Putin.
Which is it going to be?
Do you have any scholarly sources that provide a basis for such a hypothesis, like the one I provided for a more geopolitical approach in the shape of Mearsheimer's lecture?
Can you explain, then, why they have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council? Seems a reckless oversight on the part of the world's primary governing body, to allow a madman-led crime ring one of only five permanent seats on the element in charge of global security.
I didn't say he's mad.
Not really. He came to power by organizing military action. Since then, it's worked well to shore up his power and control. This is the first time things have gone substantially astray for him. This is all things you could investigate for yourself.
I'm not seeing any sources.
One would almost get the impression you don't have any.
Yes
Where does that come from?
I didn't say I was comfortable with war, but with making a moral distinction between an aggressor and his victim. That much should be obvious.
Just like you latch onto any excuse not to engage with actual substance that's presented.
The strawman you presented as though Mearsheimer argued that Putin was incapable of lying (which is obviously idiotic) is case in point.
I don't know who you think you're fooling with this nonsense. Stick to philosophy, not world politics, or better yet, stick with Twitter.
Try and follow what's actually said. Straw men are for losers. I am saying that Mearsheimer argues that we should take Putin's words seriously (at least those he cherrypicked) because Putin is not in the habit of lying. That's wishful thinking, not the kind of serious argument I was expecting from such a renown scholar.
:rofl: You ignore the central point of Mearsheimer's message so you can avoid having to engage with the substance, because it's threatening to you.
That's the problem with you people. When you're presented with something you don't want to hear, you go into tilt and you look for an excuse to plug your ears, which is exactly what you're doing.
If you genuinely believe Mearsheimer's point was that Putin never lies and we should trust everything he says, what can I say? Intellectual pursuits are not for you.
I don't even know what your thesis is.
Zizek has always existed in the tradition of Chris Hitchens anyway —i.e., entrainment and posturing. Give me Chomsky and Hedges any day of the week.
Sadly, you're thinking of the wrong "modern Hitler".
Such extraordinary powers ascribed to one man. Talk about the cult of personality!
What insights?
Quoting 180 Proof
To each his own. I don’t see what’s boring about him beyond superficialities.
Anyway…I’m getting off thread topic. If you want to respond I’ll let you have last word.
It's called a dictator.
Isn't that precisely that we should take Putin's rhetoric seriously when he says that pushing back against NATO motivates his special military operation?
No, it's called scapegoating.
:chin: :rofl:
Supporting Putin is bad for karma, I guess.
Edit: no need to answer, I'm just demonstrating a point.
Oh yeah, there's at least a book in this, if not a lucrative new line of consultancy!
Seriously, though. One of the things I do at work is provide a social psychological element to economic risk analysis. Actually, this kind of response to complex global events is a hot topic at the moment. People's economic choices are being swayed by the psychological impacts of the way social media platforms can alter our interactions. This is just such a good example.
[quote=Maslow's hammer]If the only thing you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.[/quote]
Russia, obviously, is deeply committed to not letting this happen - something which they too have publicly expressed since that very same summit.
At this point, both sides are in too deep for peace to be a serious option and it's not a matter of incompetence, but a matter of unwillingness.
Oh the irony! This one is a real gem...
You're confusing 'talking about persons' with 'making it personal'.
NATO has to reinvent itself - open a department that doles out aid/grants/loans etc. if it's to stay relevant in the modern global climate. Once Russia falls, who's it going to pick as its next bogeyman (foil)? China? And after that? I dunno!
You said it in response to my post not particularly addressed to you, pointing out that to make that distinction was to enter the war. which you did not argue against or contradict. You have joined the war, you complain at being badly treated, and you are comfortable with that. Your comfort is no comfort to me.
It's not a fight about freedom, but a fight about security; a fight amongst bullies for domination.
You are trying to confuse yourself, and it seems to work out.
In truth I have NOT joined the war just because I post my opinion here, not anymore than YOU or anyone else have joined the war by posting here. TPF is not Dombass, and that is a fact which no amount of blah blah blah will ever erase. Your neutrality is fake, an aggressive neutrality, inasmuch as you condemn people taking side, and that is in itself a form of taking side.
I think Mearsheimer should have been listened far earlier, when he was arguing that Ukraine needs it's nuclear deterrent to prevent Russia attacking it.
Of course, this view from Mearsheimer isn't now widely referred by some. The simple fact is that things have many reasons... not just one most convenient to oneself.
Russia military transportation isn't blocked (as it's done by another agreement), but timber and steel are sanctioned. This has caused I think the first actual crisis near the Suwalki Corridor. (Apart from the Polish-Belarus staged refugee crisis.)
The harshest words are heard from the Russian Duma, perhaps there members competing in licking the ass of their dear leader.
See World Bank article
Just to put up into context what a -45% GDP growth, it is similar what the Soviet Union suffered at the first year of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. That every tenth Ukrainian is now a refugee and not participating in the GDP does have an effect. Yet it also shows well that for Ukraine, this war is about survival. Which means that the hardships endured and those willing to be endured are totally on a different level.
And for totalitarian Russia, a -11% GDP growth isn't a problem.
What's your point? And how does it relate to the arguments he's making today?
Two paragraphs - one complaining about people selecting opinions (among many) that are convenient to their narratives. The second literally selecting an opinion (among many) that is convenient to your own narrative.
Do you even read these through before you post them?
How does it relate? You really are asking that?
He thought it was so likely for Russia to attack Ukraine that Ukraine should need it's own nuclear deterrent.
You're not making a point, but leaving us to guess what it is.
You believe he is wrong in what he states today?
Isaac, I've always said that NATO enlargement has been ONE reason for Russia to attack Ukraine.
My point it hasn't been THE ONLY ONE. That Russia has had, just as Mearsheimer noted earlier, interests in Ukrainian territory irrelevant of it being in NATO or not.
It's you who are having this one sided approach to the issue.
Where have I said that NATO is the only reason for Russia's invasion?
a) Usually countries don't have nuclear weapons as their neighbors aren't a threat to them.
b) Mearsheimer argued that Russia is such a grave threat to Ukraine, that it genuinely needs a nuclear deterrence.
I think the real difference has been in just what reasons are seen as the most important.
Or let's ask it this way:
What do you think the objectives of Putin's Russia would be towards Ukraine if NATO wouldn't exist?
Yes. That's the direction I've tried to take the discussion since the start, but there's been considerable resistance to people explaining hwy they consider their preferred reasons to be the 'important' ones.
I've been clear about my reasons. NATO, America, and Europe's culpability is the most important reason because I am a European and these are the political bodies I give my mandate to and have a duty to hold to account.
I remain unclear as to why the others seem so desperate to talk endlessly about how bad Putin is.
Quoting ssu
Objectives? Possibly political control (particularly over Donbas), complete control of Crimea and economic influence of the whole of Ukraine.
Actuality? Without the excuse of NATO expansion, American hypocrisy, Right-wing extremism, I don't know how much of that agenda would actually have got off the ground. Putin's not an idiot, his standing on the world stage has taken a massive hit from even a war he can plausibly claim to be a 'Special Operation'. I very much doubt a war without even the shreds of plausible justification would have been considered.
I know how much your ilk love the Putin Madman hypothesis, but the Putin Idiot hypothesis isn't even getting a look in. There's no way he would have just up and invaded Ukraine with nothing but "I want that bit" as pretext.
Of course we cannot answer historical "What If" questions, but I would dare to argue that there is more to this than just opposing NATO. And I would dare to say that Russia would behave as Russia even without NATO.
I would just take the example of Moldova, a country that has no intensions of joining NATO, and the end result there: Russian forces, frozen conflict.
And of course those 'massive hits' started with the intervention that is called the Russo-Georgian war, which actually shows the hypocrisy of the West as the Caucasus has been left as a playground for Russia's interventionist policies. Yet these interventions happened even earlier, even before Putin. So there is a longue duree in these actions.
As Russia has no clear borders, but just open steppe, it has been historically permanently aggressive. I think what Catherine the Great said once puts it in a nutshell:
Yes, and how does it relate to what is happening today and what Mearsheimer is saying about it today?
He said this in 1993.
You're leaving us to guess as to what your point is, so I'll take a guess as to what it is:
Because Mearsheimer said in 1993 that Ukraine needed a nuclear deterrent, Russia is the cause of the conflict today?
I don't see how that holds much merit, but that's what you seem to be implying.
But then again, maybe Mearsheimer was right. Maybe Ukraine has been under threat from Russia, but not as a result of Russian expansionism, but as a reaction to NATO expansionism.
Mearsheimer made his statement about Ukraine's nuclear deterrent in 1993. In 1999 NATO first's major expansion took place. In 2004 the second, and minor ones following in 2009, 2017 and 2020.
In the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, the official press release stated:
Source: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
I think that's a strong possibility, but note that in Moldova Russia also had the excuse of a Russian-friendly breakaway and a corrupt main government, conflict over allowed languages even. No NATO, but still a raft of 'justifications'.
But Georgia? Well there's the President's intent to join NATO, the US backing to get pipeline access to oilfields, Putin telling the world that NATO's intentions to expand would be considered a threat to Russia at Bucharest. Practically a pre-run of Ukraine. Really makes the lie of the idea that NATO's actions did not have clearly foreseeable consequences. The exact sorts of consequences Mearsheimer warned of, in fact.
Which side am I on? (hint: there is no such thing as an army of pacifists)
I’ve never once said I was leaving the thread. Not once.
Quoting Olivier5
I never once said I supported Putin. In fact I’ve said the opposite.
Please try to read more carefully.
Rather, you cannot claim that taking side in this particular conflict is problematic, without in fact taking some sort of side. One thing is to not take side -- that I can respect as internally logical, though I can't understand it --, quite another to disagree with the right or inclination of other folks to take side, or to find it problematic. That'd be normative, therefore aggressive.
How about: There's nothing wrong with taking side, and nothing wrong with not taking side? Live and let live.
And likely will continue also in 2022 with two new members, if Turkey get's to be satisfied.
Yet our 1344 km border with Russia now posed to be a NATO border doesn't seem to be an existential threat, which just shows in my view that NATO expansion was less of an issue than Russia's desire to dominate the territory of it's former empire. The basic underlying fact is that Russia see's the collapse of it's former empire basically as a temporary setback. Putin desperately tries to regain the position that the Soviet Union or Russian Empire had. And this is what is lacking: understanding that the empire is over. The British finally understood after Suez crisis that they weren't the British Empire anymore of the past. The Austrians understood immediately that the Austro-Hungarian empire wouldn't come back. But all the actions of Russia show that Putin's Russia doesn't think so.
That Russian currency is introduced to the occupied areas in Ukraine along with Russian passports and even 20 000 schoolteachers are going to re-trained (see WSJ article) all show what the true objectives are. These show clearly that Russia has far more than just keeping NATO out as it's objective. Of course, this should have been evident to everyone with the annexation of Crimea and all the talk of Novorossiya. After all, the attempts to take back Crimea started as early as in the 1990's.
(Newly renamed "Lenin Square" in Mariupol, Ukraine. Notice the flag.)
Quoting Isaac
This wasn't the first time. Putin just continued the policy by Yeltsin. The talk of Russia perhaps joining NATO basically ended during the NATO war in Kosovo. I think that was the real braker of Russia-NATO relations. That happened before Putin. So I'm not denying at all NATO enlargement to Ukraine has been a big issue for Russia. NATO enlargement has been their threat number 1. even in their written military doctrine for quite some time. All I'm saying that the objectives why to attack Ukraine go very much farther than that.
I would argue that Russia's stance towards former Soviet Republics is partly similar to France and how it treats it's former African colonies. Yes, they are independent, but just look at where French soldiers are deployed, where France has a lot of say to the internal affairs to the countries. Look at France and Mali and Chad, and then compare to France and Ghana or Nigeria, former British colonies. No interventions, no nothing to these countries. With Ukraine, it genuinely wants parts of it and annexations show the obvious motivation.
A possible French apologist could all the reasons why France has troops in these countries, the war against terrorism, previous Libyan aggression towards Chad and so on. But that wouldn't hide the fact that France is a colonial power that basically didn't leave it's colonies other than those it fought bitter wars with (Algeria and Vietnam).
And so is Russia when it comes to it's near abroad. To think that Russia would leave it's neighbors alone if there wouldn't be NATO is extremely unlikely: it still thinks it has the right to control at least in some way it's former parts of the past empire. It hasn't given up on it's imperial aspirations.
What border is this?
Quoting ssu
An interesting theory, presuming the ability to look deep into the Russian psyche to uncover underlying, even conspiratorial, motives.
What proof is there that this is the cause of trouble in Ukraine, and why do you think it is a better argument than the one that argues it's clear, geopolitical motivations that are behind it - motivations which experts and the Kremlin itself have communicated frequently and consistently over the span of more than a decade.
Quoting ssu
I don't agree that's what it shows. The way to keep NATO out is to make incorporation into the Russian Federation a foregone conclusion, and I think that's what these things are aimed at.
[quote="ssu;711594"... ]... and all the talk of Novorossiya.[/quote]
Talk by whom? The Russians? Or by anti-Russian analists?
I think you must mean 'live and let die.' And I'll leave you to spot what's wrong with that.
?
The border which increases hugely the border that Russia has against NATO (now only in the north in Norway and around the Kaliningrad oblast with Poland and Lithuania).
Quoting Tzeentch
???
Regime change is one thing. Annexing territories another. Last time the US fought a war of conquest was the Spanish-American war.
Quoting Tzeentch
Where do I start? Perhaps from 2014:
Or from a Russian website, geopolitika.ru:
[quote]Former "Ukraine" is from 2014 a dysfunctional pseudo-state run by an illegal and nazi junta in Kiev who take their orders from Washington. It is a scizophrenic "state" where one half of the population is indoctrinated and hates and opresses the other half with the help of the illegal regime and illegal armed terrorist groups like "Pravyj Sector". These groups have also taken over parts of the "ukrainian army" that now has become a tool of opression of the people of Novorossiya and thus has lost all legitimity too. The only way to get out of this mess is to liberate Novorossiya and all lands east of the Dnepr river from the Kiev nazi junta. This would also solve the problem of Transniestria and save that state from Nato occupation. The rest of "Ukraine" is so indoctrinated by lies and infiltrated by nazis that it is not worth the effort to liberate. It should be possible to support the Novorossian regions at least by promise that once they vote for independence, or to join Russia, then their application will be 100% approved and people will be protected from the nazis.
Novorossiya (and eastern Malorossiya) contains the biggest part of industry and natural resources, and of educated people, of former"Ukraine" so it can "pay" for the "cost" for its liberation.
History shows us that what is built on hate and lies and crime and foreign power is rotten and will collapse sooner or later. Former "Ukraine" has become the "brown hole" of Europe - "Banderastan" has no future - the future is Novorossiya! (see Geopolitica.ru)
I think the objective of territorial expansion of Russia in this war is pretty evident. If you read what in Russia is said.
And I leave you to spot what's wrong with putting words into other people's mouth.
You are talking about the length of the border after the admission of Finland as a NATO member, then?
That's by no means obvious from what you said, so I don't know why it surprised you that I asked for clarification.
As to your point, length of the border is only one aspect that can indicate a strategic vulnerability.
The Finnish border is not of the same strategic significance as Ukrainian one.
The former consists of highly irregular terrain through which is it extremely difficult to conduct military operations. The Soviets experienced first-hand how defensible this terrain was in the Winter War of 1939.
The latter consists of open plains and is part of a region also termed the "highway to the East", used by the Germans to invade the Soviet Union in WWII at rapid speed.
But how are you so certain that the Russians aren't bothered by it? Considering their hands are tied in Ukraine they're hardly in a position to object. Have they made public statements that you're basing your ideas on?
Quoting ssu
Annexing territory and fighting a war of conquest are not the same, however I don't see why this should surprise you so. Crimea was also (de facto) annexed in the same way, and I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone if they'll do the same with eastern Ukraine.
There's no real alternative that secures the geopolitical / strategic objectives we've discussed, besides a complete defeat of Ukraine that would allow Russia to turn Ukraine into a "neutral" satellite, which the Kremlin probably realises by now is not likely.
Since when are pro-Russian activists the gateway into the mind of Putin or the Kremlin?
You have this, and a Russian website? I cannot access it by the way.
I really cannot consider this evidence by any scope of the imagination, especially considering the absurdity of what you're proposing:
And lets clarify what you're proposing:
Not only are you claiming that Russia is motivated by a romantic notion of "restoring the Russian empire", and that over a decade of documented policy only serves as a pretense for this megalomaniac ambition of Tsar Putin, not only that - but you're also claiming that the fulfilment of this grand ambition hinges on conquering a handful of Ukrainian territories.
It sounds completely ridiculous.
Considering the amount of damage Russia's actions have caused to itself, it's role in international politics and it's relations with the West, which could not have come as a surprise to Moscow, it's much more likely to me they're acting out of a form of desperation.
Ukraine itself has huge strategic significance. Just earlier you could read how 'Novorossiya' is portrayed from the Russian viewpoint. And NATO attacking?
Well, if you think of it from the Russian view, the shortest way to strike a) St Petersburg, b) Moscow and c) Northern fleet/Kola peninsula is from here. Both Northern Norway or the Baltics don't have that strategic depth, Sweden+Finland add that depth to the North for NATO. In modern war airspace is crucial too, hence it's no wonder Soviet officials were proposing Soviet air defence installations to be positioned into Finland as late as the 1970's.
We agree on that.
Quoting ssu
Mexico attacking doesn't seem very likely either. But how do you think the United States would react if Mexico were to enter, say, a Chinese-led military alliance?
The Monroe Doctrine tells us how they would react, and this concept has guided United States foreign policy regarding the Americas from the Cold War to the present. Remember Cuba, Venezuela (then and now!), etc.?
Quoting ssu
Which is why I wouldn't be so sure they're not bothered by it.
But one obvious reason why they would keep quiet is because it's rather obvious that in the case of Finland and Sweden they have no power to stop it. In Ukraine they do, or at least they think they do.
Additionally, since the end of the Cold War the northern sea ports have lost a good part of their military significance - the Black Sea ports have gained in significance, politically and militarily.
The famous hypothetical China-Mexico alliance. Well, ask yourself first just why would Mexico want to have Chinese to protect them? The Zimmerman telegraph didn't change their views...even if then US-Mexican relations were a bit problematic. Or their reasons for doing this don't matter here...right???
Quoting Tzeentch
Both, Cuba and Venezuela, haven't been toppled / occupied / annexed. In fact they show clearly the limitations that the US with the most powerful military in the World has. Where the US can trample freely and have it's most bizarre and dubious machinations done are in tiny Central America and the Caribbean countries. Guatemala, Panama, Haiti and so on. Not Mexico, Brazil.
Yet US doesn't treat Mexico as Russia treats Ukraine. It isn't an "artificial" country that basically should be part of the US. After the US got Texas and California, there hasn't been appetite for more Mexican territory. Not at least yet.
International relations are a two way street.
With Mexico and the South American countries, the US cannot be such a bully. Last time it sent troops to Mexico was during the Mexican Civil War. In fact last time it was Mexico that sent troops to the US.
Anyway, the real issue is how a Great Power treats it's neighbors. Hence Luxembourg can be pretty easy with Germany and France now. But not previously. The fact you should be asking is why Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics like the Baltic States wanted to join NATO? And why Sweden and Finland opted to ask for membership in NATO?
It's just that the threat is against Putin's expansion (land-grabbing) ambitions.
And that goes to show how the sort of tu quoque type switch of narrative, "NATO is the threat", has been successful.
"Bring up and focus on that, and watch", you might hear Surkov say, with Medinsky nodding in agreement, and Kiselyov implementing for the masses.
"Shut others down", you might hear Putin say.
That was easy. :sparkle:
It became clear enough some time ago that no NATO membership for Ukraine isn't a peace-maker.
And Russian bombs are still bringing ruinage to Ukraine. :fire:
No they're not, not for great powers anyway. And the fact you would use the United States as an example of why they would be is ridiculous. There's not a modern country in the world whose unilateral interventionist policies have created more death and destruction than the United States'.
Quoting ssu
Of course they don't. You're avoiding the question: how would the United States react?
And we all know how they would react - with hostility.
Quoting ssu
If they were about to join into a hostile military alliance they certainly would.
How did the United States react to Cuba getting into bed with the USSR? By calling it an existential threat and threatening nuclear war.
That happened over half a century ago, and Cuba is still under sanctions as a result of that. Do you realise that?
Quoting ssu
History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America
Hello?
But honestly, you've already made my point:
Quoting ssu
Exactly that. So say of Russia's behavior what you will - it was entirely predictable that it would respond the way it did and made it clear over the course of more than a decade.
The fact that the United States and the EU continued their efforts to incorporate Ukraine despite this obvious red line being drawn is the reason why Mearsheimer comes to his conclusions.
Unlike Ukraine and Moldova, Georgia will have to wait to obtain EU candidate status according to the opinion issued by the European Commission.
By Faustine Vincent
Published on June 23, 2022
There were two winners, and one loser. In issuing an opinion on Friday, June 17, granting Ukraine and Moldova European Union (EU) candidate status, the European Commission has paved the way for their accession.
But Georgia, which also has aspirations of joining the EU, will have to wait. The small Caucasus country must first implement reforms – reducing political polarization, strengthening the independence of the judiciary and fighting corruption – before it can claim that status, the Commission said.
Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova all applied for membership shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. It is now up to the 27 Member States, meeting at a summit in Brussels on June 23 and 24, to study the Commission's opinion and to decide whether or not to grant these three former Soviet republics EU candidate status.
However, the European Commission did not close the door on Georgia, which fought a five-day war with Russia in August 2008. It recommended that the country be offered a "European perspective," meaning the potential right to membership, even if that has no legal value. "The door is wide open. It is up to Georgia now to take the necessary steps to move forward," said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
As far as the fight against corruption is concerned – a critical issue in both Moldova and Ukraine – Tbilisi has nevertheless made significant progress. In its 2021 report on corruption, the NGO Transparency International ranked Georgia 45th out of 180, compared to 105th for Moldova and 122nd for Ukraine.
The ruling party in Tbilisi, Georgian Dream, said it was happy to have a concrete road map but found it regrettable that the Commission did not support candidate status now. On June 17, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili had also welcomed "the historic decision to grant Georgia a European perspective." He added, "We will work with Brussels to implement all the requirements and we will obtain candidate status."
The European Commission's opinion is a setback for Georgia, where more than 80% of the population supports EU membership. About 120,000 people holding European and Georgian flags marched in Tbilisi on Monday to demand EU membership. Several pro-European organizations and all the opposition parties had called for a "march for Europe" to "prove the commitment of the Georgian people to their European choice and to Western values."
This demonstration, unprecedented in its scale, also aimed to protest the government, which stands accused of having deliberately failed to obtain EU candidate status. "Europe is a historic choice and aspiration for Georgians, for which all generations have made sacrifices," said the organizers in their statement. [...]
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/06/23/georgia-s-european-future-is-on-hold_5987790_4.html
You guys keep building straw men, over and over again. Ask yourself why you need to lie about what this article is saying, why you need to deform reality all the time. You're too shallow to deal with the truth.
The truth is that the EU never forced anyone to join, that any member nation is free to leave it anytime, that 80% of Georgians want to join because they rightly see it as a guarantor of peace and development, and that it's the only damn place on earth that defends workers rights.
Possibly, but you've still not countered the objection that they would never invade without any excuse (note 'excuse' not 'reason'). Every single invasion Russia has ever carried out in its modern incarnation has been for 'supporting separatists autonomy', or 'repelling NATO', or 'supporting legitimate governments against foreign intervention',... and so on. Never, not once, has it been "because we wanted that land".
So the policy of deliberately and knowingly providing Russia with whole raft of very real, gift-wrapped excuses is reckless at best, at worst deliberate provocation. We know full well that without those excuses it will not invade. Yet American interventions deliberately emboldened Neo-Nazi groups, deliberately stoked Anti-Russian sentiment in regions declaring their autonomy, deliberately pushed toward integration of Ukraine into NATO and the EU. In other words American interventions deliberately served up the exact excuses we all knew in advance were the difference between Putin merely wanting to invade a country (but not doing so) and Putin actually invading a country. I can't think what more deliberate provocation of a war a third party could have done.
To be clear. The rest of the world doesn't give a shit whether Putin wants to take over Ukraine, or Moldova, or Lithuania... What we care about is whether he will actually try to do so. The historical record shows categorically that the difference between the two is the presence of a legitimate-sounding excuse. Deliberately providing one of those excuses is therefore monumentally reckless, knowing the consequence of doing so. Deliberately providing an entire gift-basket of them is beyond reckless, it's manifest warmongering.
Quoting Olivier5
It writes itself :blush:
And yet it's the only place on earth that defends workers rights.
I don't need to lie about what the article is saying because the article is a bunch of propaganda. Just as I don't report Russian propaganda as truth, I don't need to report EU propaganda as truth either. Anyone who knows anything about the EU knows it is a intuition which exists to turn poorer European nations into tyre factories while austricizing them into submission by means of strangling any fiscal autonomy and with it, any semblance of democracy. It's a vehicle for corporate power and those who suck its boots are similarly suckers for that corporate power.
I repeat: the EU is the only place on earth that takes workers rights seriously. Your hatred of Europe is not fact-based. It is simply prejudiced. Seek help.
I don't think you understand what a lie means. I won't hold it against you, English not being your first language and all.
Quoting Olivier5
I'm sorry that you know nothing about the institutions you like to defend. It's a tough spot. Very admirable I guess.
Like, it doesn't take a moment of looking to see that the EU fucks poor countries and poor people everywhere it goes.
Ah, I see. The game of who is actually genuine. Note that Street isn't playing the same game as you.
Quoting Reuters
Since you're so keen on definitions. Which part of "taking Worker's Rights seriously" involve increasing the number of actual slaves in the supply line?
I don't need to know of a "non-EU country doing better" to know that the EU fucks the poor.
You're welcome to keep directing attention away from the fact that the EU fucks the poor - and that you know nothing about it - but I will keep on topic.
Keep up the good fight, then. Just be sure to not cave to their tactics. Fight hatred with love, shame with jokes, rhetoric with imagination.
How's Australia doing?
The claim was that the EU took Worker's Rights seriously. It was not that other countries/institutions were even less serious.
A claim that Hitler was a kind and gentle person is not supported by pointing to the number of people Stalin killed. Both were bastards.
That you feel you have to choose between only the currently available options is your own lack of imagination. Don't confuse it for fact.
No idea what that's about, I'm on a different plane, mate. Take a deep breath.
No idea what that's about, I'm on a different plane, mate. Take a deep breath.
No idea what that's about, I'm on a different plane, mate. Take a deep breath.
It doesn't get any more satisfying or interesting a response with repetition, does it?
You tell me.
No.
Do you actually have anything to say about worker's rights in the EU? Or Ukraine, Or literally anything of interest? Or shall we just end this here and hope the mods delete the whole sorry exchange?
I didn't comment here for that reason, no. Read my comments in order and you might get a sense.
The tools of security are weapons, restraints, and surveillance. They are designed for the denial of freedom. Security consists in the limitation of freedom. Freedom consists in the limitation of security. The tools of freedom are good education and mental and physical health.
Thus a war of liberation is a rare and fabulous beast. If there is anywhere one might justifiably pursue a war of liberation, I suggest N. Korea would be the place. And saying that is an indication of how costly, onerous, and precarious a war of liberation would be, if any country had the selflessness and moral fibre to make such an undertaking.
In practice, wars always emerge from simple fact that our security is incompatible with their freedom, and vice versa; winners gain in security, and losers lose freedom.
"Us" and "them" are also fabulous beasts created by propaganda working on fear. Fear of the other's freedom feeds the need for security. The other is different, unreasonable, vicious, immoral, unscrupulous, duplicitous, and above all dangerous. We are the opposite. As soon as we are united in our virtue, we are ready for war.
Don't tag me, tag @Streetlight and @Isaac
I've given up too. Thanks for the beautiful talking points. Always open to more wisdom, selfishly.
https://www.wireservice.ca/putin-sends-ethnic-minorities-to-die-who-are-the-buryats-kazakhs-tuvans-corriere-it/
You gotta love the " secure the Blessings of Liberty" bit. 'Catching running water in a bucket' comes to mind.
Quoting Noble Dust
According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Global Rights Index 2021 (https://www.globalrightsindex.org/en/2021/countries/aus), Australia has the same rating as the Russian Federation: 3 - 'Regular violations of rights'.
All countries rated 1 ('Sporadic violations of rights') are in the EU, bare two (Iceland and Norway). Most countries rated 2 ('Repeated violations of rights') are in the EU as well.
The US is rated 4 - 'Systematic violations of rights', which seems fair.
2021
About the Global Rights Index
The ITUC
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is a confederation of national trade union centres, each of which links trade unions in that particular country. It is the global voice of the world’s working people. The ITUC represents 200 million workers in 163 countries and has 332 national affiliates.
The Global Rights Index
The ITUC Global Rights Index depicts the world’s worst countries for workers by rating 149 countries on a scale from 1 to 5+ on the degree of respect of workers’ rights. Violations are recorded each year from April to March. Information on violations of workers’ rights in countries is published throughout the year in the ITUC Survey.
Then your claim should have been "the EU takes worker's rights more seriously than most other countries". You can't expect us to second guess that you might have some clandestine second meaning behind such a clear claim as...
Quoting Olivier5
Yet again, this double standard where you expect to be able to use some rhetorical license but accuse others of lying when they do so.
The EU is categorically not the only place on earth that takes workers rights seriously.
Iceland, Norway, and Uruguay are in the same category as the EU countries you mentioned.
Greece, Hungary, and Romania are in the EU yet in category 4.
Why oh why do you have to lie all time? Why do it? I think you should just take a good look at yourself and ask why it is you always lie.
It's going to be so great when Ukraine joins this list. Oh wait, Ukraine was very much on track to join this list which is why they started to fuck over their workers long before this war started, a process initiated by Western 'hero' Zelensky himself.
All of this is common knowledge, and the idea that "the EU is the only place on earth that takes workers rights seriously" would count as the stupidest fucking thing you've ever said in your life, if your life wasn't one stupid fucking thing said one after the other.
Got a link?
by Marielle Vitureau, Courrier International
A few days before the NATO summit in Madrid, the Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, expressed concern about the defense plans for the Baltic countries of the Atlantic Alliance, which, according to her, assumes that Tallinn will be completely destroyed.
Concern reigns in the Estonian capital since the punching remarks against NATO by the head of government, Kaja Kallas. “The Alliance's current defense plans for the Baltic states are to let them be invaded, then liberate them 180 days later. Estonia would be wiped off the map and the old town of Tallinn completely destroyed”, revealed the Prime Minister, quoted by ERR, the Estonian public media .
In an interview given to the Financial Times and relayed by ERR , Kaja Kallas specifies that “if we compare the size of Ukraine to that of the Baltic countries, this will mean the total destruction of our countries and our cultures”.
Since the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, the Baltic countries have been worried. Four months of war in Ukraine have further heightened their fears. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have therefore sent NATO a “joint proposal to obtain additional troops and permanent divisional command centers in each country”, indicates ERR .
“The current device is not working”
For five years, multinational Alliance battalions have been stationed in each of the three countries bordering Russia for the purpose of deterrence. But, as Kaja Kallas points out, “everyone sees that this tripping device [the enemy] doesn't really work”.
Kaja Kallas's remarks provoked a certain bitterness in the political class of another Baltic country, Lithuania. For Eva-Maria Liimets, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, “confidential plans should not be made public”. But they are appreciated by others in Lithuania. Laurynas Kasciunas, the deputy at the head of the Committee on Defense and National Security, believes that Kaja Kallas' claims are there "to raise the political temperature" .
Four months after the start of the war in Ukraine , the Baltic countries are strengthening their security in all directions by considerably increasing their defense budget. In these countries, NATO remains the guarantor of security. After the declarations of many politicians saying they are ready to defend every centimeter of the territory of the Alliance, the Baltic countries are awaiting very concrete decisions from the next NATO summit in Madrid, on 29 and 30 June.
:100: :up:
And if during the Cold War there would have been a Marxist revolution in Mexico, yes, extremely likely the US would have intervened. Mexicans themselves understand this quite well.
But there wasn't a leftist revolution in Mexico. Hence you really should give the reason why Mexico would think it would be better off to shed it's neutrality and join in a military alliance with China.
The simple fact is that countries seek military alliance if they feel threatened. The US isn't an existential threat to Mexico. It simply doesn't have ambitions to annex parts of Mexico. (You could argue it was in the 19th Century, but then it was attacking it's northern neighbor too...and got it's ass kicked.)
Really?
HOW ABOUT CRIMEA?
Anyway, I think you should put the trust in Stalinist rhetoric to a level where it belongs. After all, in Soviet (Russian) history Finland attacked Soviet Union in 1939 and the Soviet Union attempted to liberate the Finnish proletariat, and saw as the legal representative of Finland the Finnish Democratic Republic, which then likely would have joined the Union of Soviet Republics just like Baltic States.
Same rhetoric is continued now.
Supposedly, NATO serves little purpose to the Baltic states if they won't get protected by NATO from a Russian attack, so NATO should aim to defend the Baltic states from a Russian attack.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-split-over-fertiliser-plants-poorer-nations-food-crisis-bites-2022-06-20/
What is interesting and a show of good political moves from Russia is the defense of the ruble. After the initial plunge, it has strengthened prior to the war.
It's worth wile to look at what are the reasons for this. Yes, Russian companies had to change the foreign currencies to rubles, yes you cannot freely convert them and there are many restrictions. However this isn't the reason. The reason is basically that anybody needing rubles is basically buying them for gas, oil and other natural resources. There isn't the usual currency market casino operating with the ruble anymore. In fact, Russia has gone partly to a gold standard:
(See Russia Positions Itself To Move The Ruble To A Gold Standard)
So basically buyers of Russian gas and oil can buy with gold the rubles they need. Now linking your currency basically to natural resources that the World needs seem to be an answer, especially when the other side is printing money at enormous quantities. And this hasn't gone unnoticed by Vladimir Putin. The accusations that the global inflation is because of the war are in my view flimsy, and here I have to agree with Putin.
Putin's speech from June 17th 2022, at theSt Petersburg International Economic Forum:
(See here)
Obviously. Hence: kindly drop dead unless you're willing to pay us.
Well, when they do start dropping dead in a great famine in the Sahel or somewhere else, the Europeans (and Australians too) can show their immense benevolence and generosity by sending them food aid. :halo:
With the Baltics, first it was that the states just became NATO members.
....without anything else being done.
Then actual warplans were made to defend them, sort of.
.....without actual exercises.
Then actual exercises were held with trip-wire troops deployed.
.....without asking what then.
And now Kallas is asking the obvious. If NATO in the Baltics is just a tripwire.
This is the fundamental question IF you don't have anything else but the nuclear deterrence: what if Putin moves the border just 500m in the Suwalki gap? Is that enough to use nukes?
The funny thing is that this kind of tactic has been used literally. Even the Grand Tour found this amazing 'moving border'.
Yep. It does. Ruins that already precarious markets for the local farmers. But who cares about that.
The Baltic states are NATO members but NATO isn't committed to defending them?
Of course. EU's generosity has its limits. They won't fund the growth of foreign firms that would become competitors to their own industries.
Interestingly, Morocco is set to consolidate its position on the fertilizer market in Africa. Building on their natural phosphate deposits they are exporting to sub-saharian Africa but also building fertilizer plants there, and even contributing to agronomic research and extension about optimal fertilizer dosages etc.
See this analysis (pardon the analyst jargony phrases à la 'nexus weaponization' and his pro-western slant -- the data appears correct): https://www.mei.edu/publications/morocco-counters-russias-weaponization-food-energy-nexus
Yes. See @ssu more detailed exposition of the issue above.
My understanding is that defending them ie stopping a conventional Russian attack on them would be next to impossible. Not enough strategic depth, it's too narrow.
And if they try to defend themselves, chances are their cities will be flattened like Mariupol. The current RF preferred tactic as seen in Ukraine is to seek the complete annihilation of the enemy's civilians and military.
Now, in the case of Estonia, they've likely noticed that not all US politicians would come to their help. From some years ago:
Hopefully the current dispute with Lithuania and Russia don't grow, but we'll see what the Russian response will be.
Quoting Olivier5
I think Morocco has three quarters of the reserves of phosphate rock in the world, so it's no wonder. Yet the real issue is to have a robust efficient and up-to-date chemical industry. And that, as is the problem for many Third World countries, isn't so easy to create.
Pundits have commented that wholesale destruction is what they did in Syria. It's the only thing that works for them.
NATO wouldn't engage Russia in a nuclear conflict over the Balkan states, therefore being in NATO is meaningless for them. Can they afford a nuclear arsenal and a few missiles?
Morocco has got that infrastructure with their Office Chérifien des Phosphates, OCP. They are working with Nigeria and others to expand southward. The development of African agriculture is in their strategic interest.
Quoting Tate
I've read an oped from an obscure French philosopher a few days ago, about the streak of nihilism pervading through modern Russian history. I thought the case was a bit too dark and overblown, but now it resonates.
Here it is, for what it's worth:
---------
The most striking thing about the Ukrainian conflict is the strategy adopted by the Russians. It is characterized by a deliberate intention of annihilation, of systematic and radical destruction. Surely all wars involve damage to the enemy; but they are most often linked to military objectives.
In the case of the Russian aggression, one has the impression of an enterprise of total annihilation of the territory to be conquered, civilians and soldiers, men, buildings and things. Mariupol, Bucha and many other martyred cities tragically illustrate this desire. As has often been pointed out, this is a strategy already adopted in Chechnya and Syria.
Usually, the conqueror aims to appropriate the resources of the attacked country, which leads him to preserve them as much as possible, in his own interest. Here, on the other hand, one has the feeling that the expected gain does not matter at all. Destruction is not a means but an end in itself; and moreover it applies to the aggressor as much as to the attacked.
Nihilistic thinking as a principle of war
The damage caused to Russia by the war (effects of sanctions, withdrawal of foreign investors, accession to NATO of hitherto neutral countries, strengthening of European unity and defense, etc.) is far greater than the potential benefit of conquering the Donbass. But that damage, great as it is, doesn't seem to matter.
How to explain such an attitude? One word imposes itself on the spectacle of this militarily irrational, economically aberrant, politically catastrophic war: nihilism. We know that this concept was born in Russia in the 1860s; and it is often associated with a marginal movement of opposition to the Tsarist regime, which quickly disappeared in favor of the Marxist-Leninist protest that would lead to the October 1917 revolution.
But this representation is erroneous. The writer Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), in Fathers and Sons , defines the nihilist as someone “who does not want to recognize anything” , “who does not respect anything” and “does not bow before any authority” . The writer-philosopher Alexandre Herzen (1812-1870), in an article from 1869, sees in it “a spirit of critical purification” ; he associates the phenomenon of nihilism with the Russian mentality as such: "Nihilism is the natural, legitimate, historical fruit of this negative attitude towards life which Russian thought and Russian art had adopted from its first steps after Peter the Great. He adds :“This negation must finally lead to the negation of oneself."
Nihilism in the nature of the Russian soul
The analysis will be taken up by Fiodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), who writes, speaking of the Russians: “We are all nihilists. The philosopher Nicolas Berdiaev (1874-1948), a century later, confirms it: nihilism had its source in the Russian soul and in the nature of the pro-Slavic faith. It was “the photographic negative of Russian apocalyptic sentiment”.
Albert Camus (1913-1960), in L'Homme révolté , clarifies its contours. He detects there “the feeling, which we will find even in Bakunin and the revolutionary socialists of 1905, that suffering is regenerative”. The literary critic Vissarion Bielinski (1811-1848), one of the representatives of this movement, affirms that it is necessary to destroy reality to affirm what one is: “Negation is my God. »
One gives to nihilism, writes Camus, “the intransigence and passion of faith” . This is why “the struggle against creation will be merciless and without morality; the only salvation is in extermination”. According to political theorist Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), “the passion for destruction is a creative passion”. Sergei Nechayev (1847-1882), his companion, “pushed the coherence of nihilism as far as possible”: henceforth “violence will be turned against everyone in the service of an abstract idea” ; the leaders of the revolution must destroy not only the class enemies, but also their own militants, if they deviate from the imposed line.
An irrational approach ready for all sacrifices
Bakunin contributed as much as Marx to the Leninist doctrine – and therefore to the Soviet ideology with which Putin is imbued. Through this filiation, nihilism continues to inspire the current leaders of Russia. From nihilism to communism, and from the latter to pan-Slavism which motivates the invasion of Ukraine, it is the same abstract idea which justifies a desire for "purifying" destruction, the bias of a clean slate, of apocalypse as a political and religious ideal, of nothingness set up as a principle of action.
This is why the nuclear threat agitated by the Russian leaders should not be taken lightly. From the annihilation of the other to the universal annihilation which implies the annihilation of oneself, the border is thin. Nihilism, Camus concludes, "closely intertwined with the movement of a fallen religion, ends in terrorism". Among all the heirs of nihilism, "the taste for sacrifice coincides with the attraction of death"; “Murder is identified with suicide” .
How to deal with such an ideology? The answer is not evident. But we must in any case avoid considering Putin and his henchmen as rational conquerors, who would calculate the benefits and the costs of an aggression, like Hitler. There is a relationship between the nihilistic ideology that marked Russia in the 19th century and this way of waging war. Like any faith, it is ready for all sacrifices, including its own.
It is akin to jihadist radicalism, with which it shares many modes of action and thought. The only difference between one and the other is a difference of scale: Putin's terrorism is state terrorism, and of a state which has a nuclear arsenal which could cause the annihilation of humanity. Never before have we been faced with such a situation. In this sense, the Ukrainian war is an absolute novelty in history.
François Galichet , honorary professor at the University of Strasbourg
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2022/06/23/ukraine-il-y-a-une-filiation-entre-l-ideologie-nihiliste-qui-a-marque-la-russie-au-xixe-siecle-et-cette-facon-de-mener-la-guerre_6131725_3232.html
What proof do you have that Russia is bent on "annihilation"?
Read the news. 90% of the buildings in Sievierodonetsk have been destroyed by the Russians.
First, you'll need to provide something other than "read the news" to support your claim that 90% of buildings have been destroyed. The pictures I've seen of Severodonetsk show that claim is almost certainly objectively false, since the majority of buildings are still standing.
Second, you may then make your case for "annihilation" being the goal, for example by showing how it is different from other similar wars that have been fought.
And likely what you'll find is that the destruction seen in Ukraine is the destruction seen anywhere where there is war, and that this claim of "annihilation" is just, as I said, inflammatory garbage.
I just don't know you, man. I have no stake in what you think about Russia's military practices. Think whatever you please.
TBH, that was my first reaction. Now i think there's indeed an undercurrent of nihilism there, in the cultural background, though it does not follow that the Putin clique is irrational. The rationality of it is that, when people believe you're a mean nihilist intent on destroying the world, they fear you more.
Having an ego isn’t necessarily a problem any more than having a brain or hands and feet is a problem.
The problem is an ego that has been rendered dysfunctional or defective through exposure to miseducation, disinformation, and propaganda.
Such an ego undergoes a process of stultification and zombification and is no longer an ego that forms a harmonious part of yourself, but a foreign body that is used by external agents to remote-control you.
Denying history amounts to being in denial and being in denial means to exclude oneself from an aspect of reality that would otherwise give you a more balanced perception of what’s going on.
The whole purpose of propaganda is to distort reality and once a person’s perception of reality has been distorted, he or she becomes vulnerable to psychological manipulation.
In addition to disinformation, emotions play a key role in the stultification and zombification process. As people often act on emotional impulse instead of rational thought, propaganda aims to stir up emotions, such as anger and hatred, that can be channeled toward forms of behavior desired by the authors of the propaganda.
This is why Plato says that the emotional part of man must be ruled by the reasoning part, and not the other way round. In turn, reason must be guided by wisdom (or common sense) and justice.
However, you can only be truly wise and just when you know the facts. Knowing the facts is of paramount importance. And that includes history. Everything that exists in this world, unless it has inexplicably appeared out of the blue, has a history. Individual humans have a history, and so do groups of individuals or nations.
Knowledge of history is absolutely necessary especially when we try to form an opinion of territorial disputes like the Ukraine case, which essentially, is about territory. The whole conflict really boils down to both US-NATO and Russia claiming Ukraine as “their” territory.
Given that Ukraine and Russia used to be one country, whereas America is a non-European, and arguably, anti-European foreign power, history is on Russia’s side IMO.
And this is precisely why the pro-NATO camp are so allergic to history, because it exposes inconvenient facts that force Natoists to admit that they may not be quite as right as they think they are. Hence they’re in denial and this disqualifies them from being objective debaters.
But it’s still instructive to see what strategies and tactics they’re deploying as part of their defense mechanism …. :smile:
Quoting baker
Those who have read Plato understand that the secret in life is to know about the past without being stuck in the past. People who’re stuck in the past forget that National Socialism or Nazism has long mutated beyond recognition.
Classical Nazism (or something close to it) no longer exists except in places like China. And even there it is applied under the guise of Marxist-Leninist state capitalism.
In most places, for example, in America, Nazism (of which Natoism is a manifestation) is disguised as “liberal capitalism” and promoted under the false flag of “democracy and freedom”. But a growing number of people are beginning to realize that so-called “liberalism” is really only the thin end of the illiberal wedge that leads to natural resources, the economy, finance, culture, and information being monopolized by a few top players who together form the apex of the ruling class.
In this context, we can see some interesting developments in the US:
The Texas Republican Party just voted 'overwhelmingly' to reject the legitimacy of Biden's 2020 election win – Business Insider
Poll: Biden disapproval hits new high as more Americans say they would vote for Trump
And in Europe:
Voices: Macron’s defeat doesn’t only weaken France – it has serious implications for Europe - Independent
Ancient Egypt was a great civilization that was eventually defeated after staying strong for thousands of years. America isn’t even two and a half centuries old, and isn’t a great civilization. There is no way it will last very long. It has done everything it could to weaken Europe and other continents and now they are striking back.
In other words, once again, America has screwed up and this time like never before. So, yeah, there will be a new world order pretty soon, but not of the kind that senile old men like Biden imagine ….
Quoting Olivier5
Nonsense. If Russia wanted “the complete annihilation of the enemy's civilians”, it would have done so by now. So far, only a few thousand got killed - out of forty million!
Plus, you seem to forget that the Ukrainians were given the choice to surrender. Which, incidentally, raises the question of why they haven’t done so, given that razed cities and villages is the only alternative.
It’s understandable that the Ukrainians want to defend their country, but how are they “defending” it if it gets totally destroyed – and, possibly, still gets taken over either wholly or partly???
So, this Zelensky guy and his government just don’t make any sense.
On top of it, shameless Zelensky is now asking British festival-goers to fund his war!
Volodymyr Zelensky makes surprise appearance at Glastonbury - The Telegraph
Where have all the zillions of dollars gone that he got from America? And how much of that mountain of cash winds up in the Swiss (and Israeli) accounts of oligarchs like Kolomoisky that helped Zelensky to come to power?
Excuses were - Russian-speaking population, oppression of language, NATO risk to warm-water port access.
How do you not know that?
Quoting ssu
Who said anything about trust. We're talking about excuses. The fact is that invasions have never, ever, taken place without an excuse. Several, most of the time. The Russian Federation hasn't invented anywhere, ever where it's only stated reason has been "we want that land".
Quoting ssu
Ha! Take a country's history all the way back to 1939 and the example of naked land-grabbing you come up with is still Russia. They really have become bogeyman number one haven't they? Do you recall any other land grabs by any other countries in 1939? anything spring to mind?
@Benkei
I realise you were just making a point, but, in a continued vein, it's this^ that I've discovered anew, just from this thread. There's a rhetorical technique that I hadn't been aware of before. When one is confronted with pragmatism "we can stop this war by giving in to pragmatic demands" - the counterargument is a moral one "It wouldn't be right". When moral arguments are raised "The EU ought to care about the ability of African countries to feed themselves", the response switches to pragmatism "of course, they're not going to do that are they?"
The effect is that any position can appear to have been countered. Play the pragmatist, you get moral idealism barely short of a Hollywood movie, play the moralist and you get cold dispassionate assessment of history. Nothing gets resolved because the frame of analysis keeps changing, so arguments can be dodged infinitely.
Anyway, just thought I'd add that to your earlier insight.
Your again wrong, Isaac. With Crimea, it was viewed as an inseparable part of Russia, which had no right to be part of Ukraine. Putin stated it quite clearly.
From his speech in 2014:
So no, excuses weren't supporting separatists autonomy', or 'repelling NATO', or 'supporting legitimate governments against foreign intervention',... and so on. Something to be an inseparable part of Russia makes it quite clear. Or perhaps you haven't listened to Apollodorus, who has promoted the idea that Russia has the most justification for Crimea.
Quoting Isaac
Oh! You really think that the Winter War was an example of naked land-grabbing? But somehow you do not notice the totally similar playbook, do you?
Likely Stalin would have declared the Soviet Army peacekeepers just coming to help the Democratic Republic of Finland in a "special military operation", if that would have been the rhetoric of the time. For the Soviet soldiers it was promoted as a parade march to liberate the Finnish workers from their evil capitalist controllers. And Finnish Democratic Republic was just like the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. This has been played from the same playbook in Georgia, Moldova and now in Ukraine. Just with different outcomes.
The fist fucking paragraph of the speech.
Come on! You're becoming ridiculous.
The legality of the "full compliance with democratic procedures and international law norms" seems quite in line with the Stalinist rhetoric during the Winter War. And with Stalinist rhetoric in general:
(See here)
Besides, many also were extremely happy when the Sudetenland was taken from Czechoslovakia also...a perfect example of similar "justified" actions?
Who said anything about "justified". Where did I even mention the word?
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
...
Does it translate into something else in Finnish?
But enough of this. said the obvious about this whole issue. So let's move on.
Why would you be making such an irrelevant point when the argument was that since excuses seem a necessary precursor to invasion, we ought not have been deliberately and knowingly providing them.
Quoting ssu
What? That non-membership of NATO isn't the only criteria for peace? The Russians have been pretty clear on that from the start, so I can't see why this is news. Non-NATO, Donbas, Crimea. These have been the positions form the start. When all three are offered and the war continues, then @jorndoe might have a point about these excuses not being useful to us, but until then. What was he expecting? If it takes the unlocking of three bolts to open a door, on is hardly surprised when, after unlocking just one, the door still won't budge.
The Ukrainians are sitting ducks (no NATO), something Putin would know as well as anyone.
Is that supposed to be an argument? Or did you think I'd forgotten what your opinion was?
Quoting Isaac
what is the difference between excuse and justification to you as applied to the Russian annexation of Crimea?
A justification (apart from just the technical terminology of being legal), I consider to reflect a genuine motivation. An excuse is just a wash of justification-like reasoning which do not represent actual motives.
The point I'm making is that whether Putin wants to annex Crimea, Ukraine (or Moldova, or Lithuania...) is entirely irrelevant to us. What matters is whether he's actually going to try.
The historical record is absolutely clear that the difference between the two is the availability of a legitimate sounding excuse.
So if we want to limit the horrors of war, don't provide excuses to tyrants.
The exact opposite of the west's approach thus far.
Or irrelevant to you. Then why on Earth continue this debate?
Quoting Isaac
Well, in the case of Crimea and now in Donbas, I think this should be clear even to you.
Quoting Isaac
Oh that would make him change his mind? If we didn't give him excuses?
I think it's quite obvious that Putin had excuses / justifications / reasons to invade Ukraine irrelevant to NATO / EU / The West.
Yes. The historical record is absolutely clear on this. Without legitimate-sounding excuses, invasions do not occur. Haven't done for decades.
Quoting ssu
So if you think a known mass murderer has a gun, it's OK to sell him another? After all, he's already got a gun, so no harm making a profit out of his murderous intent, yes?
Seems like your blaming the rape victim for dressing too promiscuously. Oh yes, a decent outfit would have saved the beautiful young girl from being raped! And let's not talk about the rapist as that's irrelevant because everybody knows he's a rapist that lurks in the park.
Quoting Isaac
Let me get this right. Ukraine wanting to join NATO, and NATO saying something "OK...in the future" as they said, is equivalent of giving a gun to a known mass murderer?
So independent countries wanting to join a defense treaty to protect them from an attack is wrong?
And really, if someone says that one landmass and it's people are an inseparable part of their country and that is has been a huge historical injustice that they and the landmass has been separated from their historical and cultural home, I think there is really enough excuses to start a war with or without blaming the evil Americans.
As if all that has happened in Ukraine to provoke Russia has been of Ukraine's free unfettered choice. Your analogy fails.
Quoting ssu
America orchestrated regime change, supported Neo-Nazi groups, trained anti-Russian elements, funded elements sympathetic to their cause. Now they are supplying intelligence, weapons, training, propaganda ...
...and you're likening it to Ukraine choosing a dress? Come on!
Quoting ssu
So you keep saying, in blatant denial of the actual historical evidence which shows not one single invasion ever by the Russian Federation for which the excuse has been solely that it is an inseparable part of their landmass. Not one single example, ever.
There's a difference between supporting a regime change and orchestrating one. Sorry, but this revolution doesn't look like some "Operation Ajax". You don't have anything else to say on this, but the facts already know and discussed earlier.
And that revolution was in 2014. Several elections have gone, several administrations have gone and we have the new special military operation that started this February.
Quoting Isaac
So did Putin say. Period. End of story.
Just move on...
I'm not there.
You not here either.
First Kallas of Estonia, now Nauséda of Lithuania worried about the situation.
Still on the level of "usual stuff happening in the Baltics with Russia" in my view.
Well, I think compared to other people's claims that Crimea belongs to NATO (or America), Russia's claim is far more justified, especially considering that Crimea was Russian for several centuries and only ended up being "Ukrainian" after Ukraine declared itself independent in 1992. :grin:
Quoting Tate
I think you should start by reading @Oliver's comments first. He said:
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Olivier5
1. Destroying 90% of buildings in one town - or even in several towns - doesn't amount to the "complete and total annihilation of Ukraine's civilians and military" by any stretch of imagination. That's just Natonazi BS.
2. "Destroyed building" doesn't mean "building razed to the ground with the residents inside". The Russians do sometimes hit residential areas when these are close to the real target which is military facilities, industrial complexes, or troops passing through.
But the real bombing comes after all or most residents have been evacuated and there are only troops taking position in residential areas.
3. Ukraine has a population of about 40m and a normal death rate of 14.4 per 1,000, i.e. 1.44%.
Map of European Countries by Death Rate
If the Russians have killed, say, 40,000 Ukrainians since Feb 24, that’s less than 7% of the total annual peace-time mortality and only 0.1% of the total population.
Plus, don't forget that the Ukrainians have the option to cease fire. Zelensky has nothing to achieve by carrying on and escalating - except perhaps to stay in power for as long as possible .....
Thank you for the apologism for the murder of civilians. Not that you had any moral standing here anyway.
What I’m saying is that since the Russians are taking Crimea and the Donbas anyway, it would have made more sense (and saved more lives!) for Ukraine to accept Russia’s requests from the start.
Even Ukrainians, at least the thinking among them, realize that their war isn’t getting very far:
If they know that, why do they do it?
My take is that Zelensky (1) hasn’t got a clue and (2) he’s being pushed by the Natonazis in Washington, London, and Warsaw to wage total jihad on Russia.
But at a rate of 300 to 500 military casualties a day, he isn’t going to last very long, is he?
In theory, he could retreat and start a guerrilla war from Poland or Finland but that can go seriously wrong.
The fact is that Russia made some mistakes in the beginning but it hasn’t even mobilized yet. If Russia does (1) order general mobilization and (2) gets mad at Ukraine, the Ukrainians will be in deep trouble.
That’s why Zelensky’s childish attempts to threaten and intimidate Russia while hiding behind Biden might actually backfire. This isn't "apologizing". It's a fact-based logical observation.
It's inflammatory, and brings large-scale conflict closer.
All here should realize that large-scale conflict in Ukraine will amount to a crisis greater than the Cuba Crisis, with an even greater risk of turning nuclear.
Not only that, but for the United States to become involved in a military conflict of that magnitude would give other flashpoints in the world a chance to present themselves while the United States is preoccupied. Think of places like the Middle-East, East Asia, India / Pakistan, etc.
If such an opportunity is taken by for example China to finally make its bid for Taiwan, the "world" has two choices:
1- Accept the end of American hegemony (with all the chaos that would bring)
2- World war
I'd urge anyone who would mindlessly parrot propaganda here - those who have chosen their "team" and will cheerlead it into its respective destructions - to carefully consider what it is exactly they're seeking and thus enabling.
My position has always been to stick to the facts. That's why I've been trying to look at things from a historical perspective. Military conflicts don't fall out of the sky. They have historical roots, often going back hundreds of years. So, history shouldn't be ignored.
But I agree that America isn’t in a brilliant position either. The fact that its empire is expanding (for now) shouldn’t be misread as a sign of strength. On the contrary, if you look beyond the propaganda, there are clear signs of decay.
The pharaonic pyramid is a central feature of the Great Seal of the United States and of dollar bills.
The Great Seal of The United States - Wikipedia
And “E pluribus unum” (“Out of many, one”) and "Novus ordo seclorum" ("New order of the ages") may refer to the Union of North American states, but it can also be extended to all the states in the world, depending on one's political and ideological agenda.
The idea came from Charles Thomson, a member of the American Philosophical Society. So, I for one think that it may be worth investigating America’s imperialist ambitions.
In any case, Europe is sucking up to America only because it fell under US military occupation and economic and financial domination after WW2. But there’s no way big countries like China, India, Brazil, and others will submit to US rule.
There is mounting international resistance to America’s global empire in all areas including in economy and finance.
The dollar's dominance is already eroding as central banks diversify into the Chinese yuan and smaller currencies.
Russia and China are developing a new global reserve currency with other BRICS nations (India, Brazil, South Africa), etc.
The bottom line is that America isn’t what it used to be in the 50’s. It has drastically dumbed down, just look at its current leaders! It’s still got the technology but it no longer has the intelligence to achieve much.
Meanwhile, other countries who don’t have the technology, have developed enough intelligence to devise and mount credible and effective resistance to US leaders and their pharaonic-jihadi ambitions.
Their military capabilities are fast improving. Even if Germany will never again become a military power, Russia, China, India, and others will.
It looks like payback time is going to come sooner rather than later. America may or may not be able to save itself, but it won’t be able to save its empire, that’s for sure .... :smile:
Not going to repeat whatever previous comments already in the thread.
We'd start anew ever so often. :D
Quoting Tzeentch
I'd urge the Putin and company, the attacker, to quit bombing :fire: and send the troops home now.
Done, no more of the ruinage and killing, civilian and other, refugees could return home and rebuild.
While the West continues to hate and despise Russia, as it has always done?
You mean, all this savage Russian bombing stems from the sorrow of not being loved by Western countries?
Even if that were true (it isn't), do you think attacking bombing ruinage and killing civilian and other Ukraine/Ukrainians somehow helps...? :chin: Weird.
Well, it's not like Putin has improved the :heart:.
Have you made any effort to understand the causes and the wider context of this conflict, and if so, on what basis do you dismiss all of it in favor of this one-sided narrative?
Do you have any academic sources that can back up your views?
If your goal here is not to come to some kind of deeper understanding of the conflict, then what is your purpose here? Cheerleading? Dumbing people down with oversimplified narratives so they're more eager for conflict?
The rational reply would be deterrence, to have the capability of defending your country from an attack from this threat. And then continue to be at peace, because your deterrence keeps that someone from attacking you.
I guess the country with largest nuclear arsenal in the World can pretty much do that.
But hey, with all those "artificial" countries around you, which have territories that are culturally, historically and ethnically inseparable from your country, what else would be "rational", than annex those territories and make large scale invasions into these countries.
00:00 | Ukraine War – How does it end - Professor John Mearsheimer!
01:12 | Is arming the Ukrainians a good thing?
02:30 | Who is responsible for the Ukraine war?
03:20 | Why didn't Russia stop NATO expansions?
04:04 | Could Trump presidency prevented the war?
05:58 | Make Ukraine neutral and end the war?
06:43 | Should Russia return conquered Ukrainian cities?
(1) Lifted their arms embargo on Turkey
(2) Agreed to support Turkey in their attempt to murder Kurds, while pulling their support for Kurds
(3) Agreed to amend their terrorism laws
(4) Agreed to share their intel
(5) Agreed to extradite those taking shelter from Erdogan's regime.
Fuck Sweden, fuck Finland.
Bomb Ukrainian babies, of course. That will help a lot.
It's unclear who they were trying to orient; I suppose some tourists in Washington looking desperately for indications on where to find the White House... Well, now they know, thanks to Mr Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos. :razz:
https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-publishes-pentagon-coordinates-says-western-satellites-work-our-enemy-2022-06-28/
At least Finland isn't changing it laws and likely isn't Sweden, so enough with your typical bullshit lies.
And as the objective seems for some just to make this thread into a place for personal ad hominem attacks or the similar, here's a link to the actual memorandum. So please, I would like that the people would read it first:
Trilateral Memorandum
What should be noted that the PKK is a terrorist organization by the EU, so this isn't at all different policy from before. And Finland has no "pending deportation or extradition requests of terror suspects".
At least Erdogan has made the establishment to speak of Türkiye, not Turkey anymore. Tells a little bit about his personality, actually. But otherwise, I think [s]Turkey[/s] Türkiye's government will interpret the agreement as much as possible to Erdogan's favour.
Needless to say, the real issue is if deportations happen in the future, as now these are viewed under the media searchlight at least here and likely in Sweden.
The "real issue" is Sweden and Finland being enablers of a murderous Turkey, not your crappy dissimulating nonsense.
Sweden's existence has always been built on blood anyway, considering its arms export industry. This is nothing but a piece of that genocidal legacy.
When you say something that is wrong, I'll correct you.
Nobody is amending anything. If you actually would read the memorandum (which you won't).
And I don't know how much Erdogan in mirdering his people.
At least some Turkish NATO officers that just had to happen to be in the NATO HQ when the coup happened, seeked political asylum in the West (from Erdogan's wrath). So yes, Turkey is a problematic member, that's true.
@ssu's shitty country is a great shitty country, full of smart shitty people.
Where do you think I summarized the points from? And of course the reference to changing laws is (6):
To say nothing of the fact that this is but one of the few issues I mentioned, the worst being the Finnish and Swedish selling arms to a proven killer.
And btw, when asked before (if it was OK for Turkey), Erdogan gave a green light without any conditions. Only later he noticed the chance to milk things. I think this is typical to both NATO and EU membership talks (as is the case of North Macedonia and it's EU talks). And of course, there's a long road still for our shitty country to be part of the evil-NATO. Likely in the end of this year?
But it's good that we are actually now talking about the actual memorandum.
And it's sooo much better that you brought up the totally irrelevant fact that Erdogan didn't notice at first but now does. Wow. Stunning and brave. I'm sure all the people Erdogan will murder with the weapons provided by Sweden and Finland will die better knowing that.
That's what it says.
Erdogan was milking the moment, and NATO actually also wants the two shitty countries to join it. So this vague memorandum he then got.
Quoting Streetlight
Turkish media has proclaimed it to be a victory for Turkey and that's what Erdogan wanted. And how it is represented in the Turkish media is the important thing here.
I mean, who actually reads the actual memorandums? Just look at the Trump peace deal with the Taleban: to call it a peace agreement when the other side (the Taleban, or the Emirate of Afghanistan) can continue it's war against the Afghan republic isn't in my view a peace agreement. But that's what it was referred to, a peace deal.
More readiness:
I think this speech from the new British Army Chief of Staff tells what the future of NATO is going to look like. Very much like the one during the Cold War.
The "1937 Moment" and emphasis on "mobilization":
Good luck shooting down Russia's nuclear weapons with more troops on the border because a NATO / Russia hot war isn't going to stay conventional for very long. Seems like a bunch of meaningless posturing tbh.
What are you even talking about. The fact that Sweden and Finland are enabling a piece of shit country to ramp up their war machine to murder more people is the most important thing here. But yeah, you go on and tell me about Turkish media. The correct takeaway is exactly the one I began with: Fuck Sweden, Fuck Finland. Especially fuck them since Turkey has been sabre rattling at Greece with increasing intensity for the last few months now.
You seem to think it isn't trying to do that?
It certainly hasn't worked until February this year. Make no mistake, I have no doubt that the West will win this. Hatred and contempt are stronger than justice, stronger than goodwill.
Did you know that if you maintain a steady level of hatred and bitterness for long enough, political change will eventually just spontaneously occur? You're almost there, soldier.
The southern Ukrainian city fell quickly and without a fight to the Russians. Moscow accelerates the Russification of the region, while resistance is getting organized.
By Florence Aubenas (Le Monde special correspondent, from Kiev, Odessa and Mykolaiv)
29 June 2022
She found the letter in the kitchen, next to a plate of pancakes, in their apartment on the fifth floor of a quiet building. “Svieta, my daughter. Eat the pancakes, they are very good with cheese. I'm sick of the pain, I can't take it anymore. Goodbye. Your father." The father could no longer find anything to treat himself, so he jumped out of the window.
"Here, the lack of medicine kills more people than weapons ," reports a doctor from Tropin Hospital in Kherson, southern Ukraine, over the phone. The first big city conquered, a few days after the Russian invasion, Kherson does not let its particular situation known easily. From the outside, it seems almost intact, a seaside resort and port between two seas – the Black and that of Azov – a postcard beauty. Here, there was no massive destruction like in Mariupol or mass graves discovered like in Bucha.
Yet Kherson has been living under the occupation of Moscow for four months. Nothing arrives there from Ukraine anymore, neither food nor pensions. The roads are blocked, without even a humanitarian corridor: the only access that remains is through Crimea, the neighboring peninsula, already annexed by Moscow in 2014. Cut off from the world, the city of Kherson, like the oblast of the same name, has gone missing: the only independent testimonies come from refugees or residents contacted by telephone.
“We are here forever, Kyiv has let you down”, hammer the occupants, who have just completed a third line of defense. However, for the first time, on June 22, the official Russian agency TASS acknowledged that a car bomb attack had targeted a pro-Russian collaborator. Several prior actions had been kept under silence. Behind closed doors in the conquered region, another battle has just begun.
"The Russians had prepared their invasion, not only militarily, but with hidden agents at the heart of Ukrainian power" -- Oleg Dunda, Ukrainian MP
The story of Kherson, its capture and occupation begins with a mystery: how could the city have fallen without a fight – or almost – when the resistance elsewhere in Ukraine has stunned the world? "I would really like to know, like all citizens", says Iryna Verechchuk, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the occupied territories in Kiev. She remembers the early days of the invasion, when the national military committee wondered: why aren't the bridges blowing up? Why aren't our troops fighting on the border? These were the orders in case of aggression. Treason ? The word goes around, of course.
“If there has been sabotage, we will know, an investigation is underway , ” continues the Deputy Prime Minister. For his part, the deputy Oleg Dunda, member of the presidential party, recognizes that certain risks may have been badly assessed. "The Russians had prepared their invasion, not only militarily, but with hidden agents at the heart of Ukrainian power, " he explains. It is to the point where the American services did not share certain information, for fear that it may land in Moscow. »
In Kherson, in any case, on February 24, “soldiers, policemen, customs officers, all had evaporated” , remembers Dmytro Paraschinets, adviser to the region. A military leader ends up being contacted. On the phone, he answers "to be already very far away" . The only one to stand up: the territorial defense, a hundred civilians gathered in haste four days earlier. No weapons were issued to them. More than sixty died in combat. In the street, two strangers throw themselves with their bare hands against Russian tanks, an image of pure despair that still haunts Dmytro Paraschinets, now a refugee in Kyiv.
Vladimir Putin's strategy seemed to be working: the way was clear to advance to Odessa, 200 kilometers away along the Black Sea shore.
In fact, the columns were blocked halfway by fierce fighting around Mykolaiv, a strategic port. Fallback to Kherson. A resident remembers: “The Russian soldiers arrived at Victory Square, weapons in hand, and began to rob the supermarket." The occupation has just begun. It was the first week of March.
But this oblast does not resemble neighboring Crimea, where Moscow enjoyed strong enough support to integrate it into the Russian Federation via a referendum – imposed by the Kremlin – in 2014. Here, the pro-Russian parties never exceeded 20% of the votes.
So, every day, at noon, a ritual of insane courage began: hundreds of civilians with their faces uncovered demonstrate behind their national flag. "At the beginning, we were surprised: the Russians didn't touch anyone, " says one of them. "It gave us the audacity to continue." Moscow also distributes food donations in front of the station, buckwheat and tin cans, in front of Russian TV cameras. “They wanted to show themselves as good people,” says a businesswoman. Any other help is prohibited.
“They want the Dombas veterans, they want revenge.” -- the father of a veteran
At that same time, the first arrests began. Names of targeted people, addresses, functions, everything was recorded on lists "established for the most part before the invasion", explains MP Oleg Dunda. High in those lists figured the Ukrainian veterans of Donbass, who have been fighting against the separatists supported by Moscow since 2014. "They want the veterans, they want revenge, down to the last one," says the father of one of them. Arrested mid-March, his son never reappeared. Then came the people of influence, local authorities, journalists, neighborhood committees, bosses or demonstrators.
More than six hundred civilians have gone missing. Those who survived describe the same scenes: detention in cellars, stripping, beatings, torture with electricity, mock executions.
An elected official says that after three weeks he was offered to be released if he shoots two videos, one for the local population, the other for the Russians. “I had to say that I had not been arrested, but that I was responding to a medical examination. Then, I had to call to collaborate. The version for Moscow included one more sentence, only one: "I condemn the Nazism of Ukraine." Liberating the country from "fascism" remains the Kremlin's official justification for its invasion. Released, he found his house looted, even the electric kettle. He said he drank vodka all night. “At dawn, I understood that I would be their bait to arrest others, before being killed myself." He left the region clandestinely.
Social centers, nurseries, everything is closed. The last pro-Ukraine demonstration marched on April 27, a handful of people dispersed by the riot squad from Moscow. In the city, more than six hundred civilians are missing. Half the region has fled.
Historian and community activist in Odessa, Oleksander Babych has become a privileged confidant for those who remained in Kherson: his book The occupation of Odessa from 1941 to 1944 is a reference in Ukraine. Many consult it today to find out how to behave in the face of invaders. Babytch's response varies very little: “Prepare to be betrayed, including by those you think you know."
And indeed the floodgates opened, collaborators replaced one by one those who refused to work with the Russians in the oblast: the governor, the mayors or the head of the chamber of agriculture. "They display themselves without embarrassment," says a restaurateur in Kherson. In general, they were born under the Soviet Union, before independence in 1991, ambitious people who choose the strong neighbor."
If one of them were to symbolize the figure of the “traitor”, Volodymyr Saldo, 66, would surely fit the bill. Mayor of Kherson from 2002 to 2012, he had lost his mandate and was struggling with legal problems, untill the occupying forces offered him the post of governor on April 27.
At the beginning of June, two men got out of a 4×4 In front of a big farm near Kherson and introduced themselves to the farmer as businessmen. The farmer has never seen them, but the guns on their thighs made questions superfluous. The strangers offered to buy his crops, wheat, soybeans, vegetables, everything. Here, we are in the land of the black earth, one of the most fertile in the world, so rich, so oily that the Germans had the mad project of exporting it home by trainloads during the Second World War. The visitors offered a ridiculous price, three times less than the market. But the market no longer exists in the Kherson oblast: selling in Ukraine, or even more so internationally, has been impossible since the occupation.
Of course, the strangers wanted to pay in rubles: the new authorities now impose the Russian currency against the Ukrainian hryvnia. Thoughts were rushing in the farmer's head: “If I refuse to sell, they will rob me anyway." An idea occured to him: “What if I burned everything? No, not possible. They would take it as an offense." The other two made themseves clear: “It's either collaboration or the cellar". This farmer is one of the last who managed to flee the oblast.
Today, officers have settled in his property, they empty beers around his swimming pool. Russian soldiers have been encouraged for several weeks to bring their families and install them in unoccupied accommodation. “De-Ukrainization” is advancing like a steamroller: Russian will the school curricula be; Russian will be the only bank allowed to operate in Kherson, and it plans to open two hundred branches; Russian the businesses in the district; Russian the Internet, telephone and television networks; Russian the institutions; Russian any child born in the oblast after February 24, 2022.
Regularly announced, the organization of a referendum ratifying an attachment to Russia, as was the case in Crimea, is constantly postponed. Too risky: there is little or no chance that the result will be positive. So, at the microphone of the Novosti news agency, Governor Saldo pretends not to attach any importance to it: “The region already belongs to the great family of Russia." A procedure against him has been launched by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine: Saldo faces fifteen years in prison for treason.
In the morning, Kherson turns into a huge open-air market: smuggled Belarusian cigarettes, a few medicines sometimes, or a woman's bracelet placed on a headscarf. One sells what one needs to survive. This is the last place where the Ukrainian hryvnia is still current, though using it already constitutes an “act of rebellion”. There are hardly any more in circulation. Barter sets in, wages are paid in food for those who are still working. Ten thousand jobs have disappeared, especially in tourism. “We don't argue, but people don't talk about anything anymore, says a trader. We feel that something is being organized. But who is who? Who does what ?"
From noon, the streets empty, the inhabitants barricade themselves. Another life begins, as if separated from the first: the Russian hours. In the streets, one only comes across soldiers in bands, some wearing hoods. Or collaborators.
At the end of March, two of them had already been killed in attacks.
In recent days, the actions have intensified, more than 15, for those who are known in any case: Russian soldiers machine-gunned in a restaurant, car bombs against the director of the prison administration, the head of the bus station or Governor Saldo himself. These last three survived.
On a messaging service, a group has just been launched, called "the traitors' base". Seventeen thousand participants so far have denounced supposed collaborators, with their photos, from the most visible to the most pathetic, like this very young high school student, smeared with lipstick, who declares on Facebook her fondness for Russian soldiers. In Kiev, a military spokesman announced that a group of "guerrillas" had opened an internal front.
As a response, the former mayor of Kherson, Ihor Kulekaev, was arrested by occupation forces on Tuesday June 28. "Whoever was causing so much harm to the denazification process has finally been neutralized," said pro-Russian deputy governor Kirill Strimosov. Dismissed after the fall of the oblast, the ex-mayor had never left his city. He was at home when they came for him. He is now missing.
Russia is reacting to decades of NATO expansion and over a decade of their warnings about Ukraine not being heeded. There is no question in my mind that this general is aware of this wider context.
Yet, it is willfully left out, despite the fact this would put into perspective any real risk for NATO countries being invaded by Russia: virtually zero.
So what is the purpose of war rhetoric like this? Just a "never waste a good crisis"-moment for the Ministry of Defense to get some extra budget?
Surely there is no point in increasing the budget and sending loads of forces to Eastern Europe to counter a threat that, honestly, doesn't really exist.
Or are they going to bring the fight to the Russians and provoke a possible WW3, in line with his reference?
Vive la résistance
Hasn't it? I don't think NATO has attacked Russia at any point. Even now, it's not putting it's troops in Ukraine or establishing no-fly-zones, which pretty well makes my point.
Quoting Tzeentch
And without NATO they would have likely attacked earlier. Some if not all Baltic states surely would either have Russian bases or have their frozen conflict and Russian "peacekeepers".
Aleksandr Dugin made it clear what is the goals of the Eurasian Russia in the early 2000's:
(John B. Dunlop, 2004)
Actually, Gorbachev hoped to use Finlandization at the former Warsaw Pact countries, but that didn't work out as the Soviet Union collapsed.
Now they have NATO bases and NATO peacekeepers. It should be pretty clear there's a political tug-of-war taking place in Eastern Europe, and the one-sided portrayal as the Russians as the baddies is just silly and unproductive unless one's goal is to steer towards large-scale conflict as fast as possible.
Also, what is wrong with "Finlandization"? Neutral buffer states have always been an ingredient, perhaps even a necessity, for peace. NATO's continued erosion of the buffer between NATO and Russia is what has produced our current predicament.
The use of the term seems to be contradictory in the parts you quoted.
You have more confidence than said "West":
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/28/politics/white-house-ukraine-projection/index.html
---
But this assumes that the Western metric of 'winning' is Ukraine keeping territory. It isn't, and never has been. The West does not give a shit about Ukraine. Nonetheless, the West is winning:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-says-us-changing-force-posture-europe-based-threat-2022-06-29/
...And it just so happens that the definition of Ukrainian victory ought to begin to 'shift' now. What a surprise. The Americans are getting what they want, so they're getting ready to jump ship and leave the Ukrainians to drop dead. As has always been the plan.
Why would it be considered a victory to have Europeans arm themselves against a Russia that would never attack them anyway. Those troops are going to be sitting on the border doing nothing, because Russia would never invade a NATO country, and likely it wouldn't have dreamed of ever invading Sweden or Finland either.
Moreover, the Europeans are going to be mostly absent in any future conflict between the US and China - certainly European land forces have no chance of ever being deployed that far from their borders.
If the goal was to secure America's "NATO-flank" in a possible future conflict with China, then surely it would have been more secure with a neutral Ukraine and normal relations between Russia and Europe.
Now the United States is driving the Russians towards the Chinese, so Chinese gets a massively important strategic ally, while the United States gets essentially nothing.
The US has more than 750 military bases around the globe. Practically every one of them is a matter of people 'sitting around doing nothing'. This is not a bug, but a feature. It is capital sink. Or better, a capital cycling mechanism. It is how money moves from taxpayers to arms manufacturers and professional murders, before trickling back into shithole areas to minimally sustain local American regional development. And the US can always, always, always be counted on on finding some excuse to murder people in some region of the global, somewhere, for any reason whatsoever. The expansion of US Empire is simply the foundation of the American living standard.
If people are not being killed in mass numbers somewhere on the Earth with the support of American weapons and personnel, the American living standard drops.
Which they wanted to have.
The little obvious fact that the NATO troops and NATO are actually welcome.
What point in that this is a voluntary defense pact and the collective defense organization of Europe you do not understand?
Quoting Tzeentch
Your asking a Finn about that?
Your asking basically a question: "What is wrong in a foreign intelligence service basically being in your government with veto-power and then being active on nearly everything and intervening in everything?"
That intervention goes from who can be in the government and who can be the president, to things like what kind of movies can be shown or not, what books can be published and even what kind of video games can be played.
(Yes, the latter is true. The Russian embassy contacted the Finnish government about the early computer game "Raid over Moscow" and demanded it to be censored. As the administration didn't find any laws that this could be done (and rightfully thought this was nonsense), then communist Parliament members demanded the game taken out from stores and Soviet sympathizers in the media made a huge issue about the game and it's violence. It's the only video/computer game to make a political row in Finnish politics.
That was Finlandization.
That is how Soviet/Russian intelligence services operate. That is how Putin operates. Now you can compare to your country, if it's in the West, the UK or Australia and ask how many video games has the CIA tried to censor in your country? How many times the US has threatened with retaliatory actions if your country picks the wrong candidate in the elections for prime minister or president?
Finland joining the EU was actually a close call in the Parliament. Finland joining NATO wasn't. That really should tell you a lot.
The United States is its military-industrial complex. 'It's' pockets are one and the same. Although shared with oil and finance and some others. Together they are all this entity called the 'United States' that pretends to be a country. And Eastern Europe just happens to be the current warzone de jour. It will pursue war anywhere, indifferently, as a result.
Voluntariness is not a factor in this. This isn't about good or bad, it's about geopolitics and it's very real consequences.
Cuba also voluntarily joined a USSR-led military alliance. It made no difference to the United States. Of course not. What happened when Vietnam threatened to voluntarily become communist? What happened when Iraq voluntarily threatened US oil and the dollar's position as the world's reserve currency?
Nations do things voluntarily all the time, and it has never been a reason for great powers not to interfere.
Quoting ssu
"Finlandization is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country refrain from opposing the former's foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization
You seem to be using a different definition of the term than what I found.
By that definition Europe is essentially Finlandized by the United States.
So again, what's the problem?
Quoting ssu
The United States has dragged its vassals into numerous wars of greed, and is now in the process of dragging Europe into a serious large-scale conflict in Ukraine.
I wish its meddling would limit itself to censoring videogames.
Anyway, I'm not making the point that I prefer one over the other. That is completely besides the point, and that's the point you're continually missing.
Your views on right and wrong don't influence at all the very real consequences of provocative policy. "We are the good guys, so we get to provoke" is obviously not something other nations care for. They will react.
You can't seem to decide whether you're an idealist or a realist. I'm arguing from a realist perspective. if there was any doubt about that.
Is this the same as the "United States foreign policy establishment", also referred to as "the blob"?
Of course the bad guys may react, as we may react to their invasion of Ukraine. Assholes are not the only ones entitled to react, if you think about it for a second.
https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/
Except that is not what you are advocating.
You believe NATO should get to expand and interfere all it wants because they're "the good guys", and when another nation reacts you cry foul.
Whatever your position is, it's hopelessly confused.
I respect your point of view. I think there are ways the Russians could have won Ukraine's friendship if that's what they wanted. I think there were ways other than invading repeatedly to establish close ties. Don't you agree?
Thanks for the laugh; that was a ridiculous straw man.
You don't know what my position is because you don't care about it. And you are so easily confused... :-)
My position is that NATO will react to what the Russians do. If Russia invades a friendly European country, of course NATO will gear up its presence in Europe. That is to be expected, and entirely natural. To expect something else is to be delusional.
What?
That a country joins voluntarily a treaty or it's forced by military force (occupation etc.) to have foreign troops and bases is the same for you? So in your idea Sweden and Finland joining NATO is the same thing as the US invading Iraq? I think they are not.
Your genuinely saying that voluntariness of joining organizations by independent countries isn't a factor?
Quoting Tzeentch
Actually Cuba didn't join the Warsaw Pact.
And it did make the difference that the US didn't and hasn't invaded Cuba. The US has Guantanamo Bay base since in 1903 newly independent Cuba and the US made lease agreement, which has no fixed expiration date. Yet Cuba hasn't been invaded by the US. It surely has tried all kinds of ways to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro, yet Cuban deterrence has worked.
Quoting Tzeentch
Really, Tzeentch, really?
So you copy paste what wikipedia says Finlandization and then say I have opposing views about Finlandization? As a Finn and an history I think I genuinely know the history and politics of my shitty country far more than you.
If you really think that the US and the Soviet Union treated the same way European countries, I think you are seriously ignorant about history. And the basic issue is that even Great Powers treat very differently different countries. For example France treats quite differently Mali compared to Luxembourg, even if both countries have been part of France. Just as Russia now treats Finland and Ukraine quite differently. Even Putin has said that:
(see here)
Which above simply undermines this idea that the most important factor which lead to Russia invading Ukraine was the enlargement of NATO. NATO enlargement is only a minor reason, the real reasons are quite old style Russian thinking about Ukraine.
Yep. In geopolitics power, not our personal fancies, is what matters. That's the realist point of view - not because a realist likes it that way, but because a realist recognizes that's how geopolitics works.
Quoting ssu
It threatened nuclear war, and as a result the USSR and the US came to an agreement about Cuba.
Cuba is under sanctions to this very day, over half a century later.
And are you aware of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion?
I also hope you're not trying to make the point that the United States would never do something like invade another country whenever their foreign or economic policy doesn't suit them. The list is too long to mention.
Quoting ssu
Your use of the term "Finlandization" seemed contradictory to what I believe the term means. Tell me then, what definition of the term are you going by?
And you haven't answered my question.
What is the problem with "Finlandization"?
That small countries adjust their foreign policy to appease their more powerful neighbor in exchange for maintaining a degree of political independence seems no more than the logical thing to do.
Do you think European countries, being part of NATO, are free to pursue their own foreign policy if it conflicts with United States' interests? I can assure you they're not.
Yet if you argue to be a realist, you should observe that the tactics that the Soviet Union held to it's part of Europe didn't work so well. The Warsaw Pact collapsed. You can make a throne from bayonets, but it's difficult to sit on them. The only actual operations the Warsaw pact did was to attack and occupy one of it's members. That's not a "personal fancie".
Whereas the US empire by listening to Europeans themselves and favoring for example European integration has worked well: Europeans like to have the US here.
Quoting Tzeentch
It really isn't at all contradictory. What I described was just facts what was included with the Soviet Union in "refraining from opposing the former's foreign policy rules". That's what they did, hence there's no contradiction.
For some reason you think that it's equivalent to be under US spehere of influence and under Russian / Soviet sphere of influence. I've established the fact that how nations treat others is quite different (for example Russia and Ukraine compared to Finland), but the fact is that in general being under the Russian sphere of influence simply sucks big time. Doesn't work, and hence Russia has to then use military force.
Quoting Tzeentch
They have quite a lot more to say than with being under Russian sphere of influence, that's for sure.
Just look at [s]Turk[/s]Türkiye.
Who actually fires the first bullet has only symbolic value. When a party makes it clear it wants to destroy the other, it's irrelevant who actually started shooting.
I agree, but that's not what we're debating here. I'm not making a judgement about whether Russia's policies are effective or not.
Quoting ssu
I think the Europeans mainly like not having to spend much on defense.
But I suppose your point is that US - European relations have been more cooperative, and thus better. That's a moral judgement, and realists don't deal in moral judgements.
The question is what conclusions does one draw from such a moral judgement?
Is the US/NATO better than other states and therefore gets to ignore other states' strategic interests in line with "American exceptionalism" or "Idealism"?
You're free to hold such a view, but we can see where it leads: war.
Quoting ssu
You framed it as something highly undesirable. I don't think "Finlandization" is undesirable. It seems to me a very rational way in which small nations interact with big nations.
And I'm waiting for you to share a definition of 'Finlandization' that shows why it is so undesirable in your view.
Quoting ssu
I don't think that.
But suppose we say it's better to be under the US sphere of influence than it is to be under the Russian sphere of influence. (A moral judgement)
Does the US now gain a right to incorporate every nation that is under the Russian sphere of influence?
We know where that leads: war.
Quoting ssu
Türkiye is not in the United States' sphere of influence.
Apparently Ukraine is not in the Russian Federation's sphere of influence either.
"According to a recent survey in Finland, only 14 percent of the Finns agree that legislative changes ought to be made in order to get Turkey’s support for accession to the NATO alliance. 70 percent of respondents said that they do not support making concessions to Turkey.
The results of the survey, conducted by Helsingin Sanomat, have been released on Monday, one day before the leaders of Finland and Sweden are set to meet with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to convince him to drop his objections to their membership of NATO."
https://www.nuceciwan107.xyz/en/2022/06/30/70-percent-of-finns-oppose-concessions-to-turkey-in-exchange-for-nato-membership/
Quoting Russian government will conclude an agreement on financial aid with Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Mar 2, 2009)
Quoting Russia signs financial aid deals with Abkhazia, South Ossetia-2 (Mar 17, 2009)
Mainwhile ...
Yes. That's a really good point, Tzeentch. By working for other countries even a bit, guess what, those countries do value the effort!
But if you basically are just the colonizer, in some way or another, that does not bring anything to others, of course the people will hate you.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yeah.
Cooperation is better.
And just why do you think it's a moral judgemenent? I think it's quite rational judgement, not moral. Which ally would you want? The "ally" that steals, dominates and screws you, or the one that can listen to you and cooperate, even does something for you? Something like when the opposing Great Power blockades a large city of yours that is separated from you, your ally creates an airlift to feed your city.
Those kind of actions are noted. Thus it's a rational choice, not a moral one. And that rationality brings it down to the realpolitik approach.
The fact is, Sweden and Finland joining NATO was a rational choice, not a moral one. Especially for the Swedes and their 200 year neutrality, it really came down to a rational choice. For Finland it was far more obvious, because we Finns know we are an expendable.
After all, Nazi Germany partly saved us (Finland) in the summer of '44 from the Russian offensive with arms shipments and military assistance. And how did we Finns repay that assistance? By enacting a separate peace with Russia and then attacking our former ally, our Waffenbrüder in Northern Finland. For Finns it's hasn't been about a moral right or wrong, even if we believe in democracy. It has been all the time about simply survival. Hence in WW2 there was no "liberation date" for us: we weren't liberated from ourselves.
Hence only a minority of Finns thought before February 24th that joining NATO would be a good thing, because the simple fact was that many Finns didn't believe that NATO was a genuine European defense organization, but a puppet of the US and really hoped to have good relations with Russia, just as we have with the Swedes. But then February 24th happened, which basically gave the flashback of 1939 for the entire nation: our Eastern neighbor was back into it's old ways of behaving.
****
Quoting Streetlight
Actually the government is fully aware what the people think. Hope the media follows just what happens later. I think they will do that.
But as for the surveys: You know Streetlight, there are many Finns that think just like you. And if I would start a conversation with them about politics, you bet they would disagree with me. Yet I know that when the shit really hits the fan, I can trust them. They never will be my enemy. That's why I really believe in democracy. That's the wonderful thing living in a tiny nation: social cohesion.
In fact I would not support giving any concessions to Turkey, so I'm in that 70 percent. We already got the promises from the US, the UK (and from Poland and Italy) that they'll give us security guarantees during the membership progress, so FUCK ERDOGAN!!! So if NATO doesn't take us to join because of Erdogan, that's NATO's problem, not ours.
Umm...but isn't in a NATO country?
Protecting and helping all those Russians in other countries is a burden, but a burden which Putin's gallantly takes on, right?
I think that Hitler also gave some money to the Sudetenland Germans also...
My point has always been that from a realist perspective Russia's actions were entirely predictable, that the United States were aware of this and provoked Russia intentionally, perhaps thinking they were bluffing.
You are making a moral argument, that the United States is better than Russia, and therefore should have the priviledge to pursue its foreign policies whereas Russia does not. Or that it is preferable that the United States lords over countries instead of Russia.
To that I say, one's moral judgement is completely irrelevant. All the moral indignation in the world didn't stop Russia from invading Ukraine, did it?
That's because moral judgements don't matter. What matters is power, and states will do whatever is in their power to pursue their interests, and moral judgements only matter to the extent that they're backed up by power. That's realism.
Your preference for the United States is clear. However, if states behave on the basis of their own moral judgements and completely disregard other states' power and interests, it's a highway to trouble.
Ukraine preferred the United States, and chose to ignore Russia's interests and power, and now it's being devastated. Regrettable, to be sure. But also predictable.
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting ssu
The United States has no real means to unilaterally influence Türkiye, that is to say, it has no power to force Türkiye to do anything, shy of a military invasion.
From your realist perspective, this would be a smart strategy to follow, don't you think? Draw Russia into a costly conflict, and bleed it.
It's absolutely foolish, from a European perspective and from an American perspective.
The United States needs to shift its focus to China, which is an actual peer competitor that can challenge the United States' position as hegemon. Not Russia.
What the United States has done by provoking conflict in Eastern Europe is not only guarantee years of conflict and tensions that benefits no one (not to mention the risk of large-scale/nuclear war), it has also bound itself to the protection of Eastern Europe because no other country in NATO is able to stand up against Russia.
And that's not all. This conflict and the reaction by NATO / EU have driven the Russians straight into the arms of the Chinese and given them even more incentive to create a balancing coalition against the US / NATO - something which the Russians were not keen on before this conflict. The Russians and the Chinese have never been fond of each other, but United States meddling have given them a common enemy.
This conflict is disastrous from any perspective, but especially from a western perspective. China is the laughing third.
This scenatio seems too pessimistic to me. China has historically been a peaceful nation, and they will if anything be deterred from invading Taiwan (the only immediate risk they may pose) by watching Russia 'bleed' in Ukraine.
Regardless of the validity of this statement, China does not need war to become the world's most powerful nation, and thus deprive the United States of its hegemon status.
In fact, a serious argument could be made that unless it goes to war it will surpass the United States economically and rise to become the world's most powerful nation. If one accepts that premise, it's not unthinkable the United States will seek to drag China into some kind of conflict and force China's hand.
And the question is also whether China will remain peaceful once its rise to the world's leading power gets stifled by nations like the United States and US allies in East Asia. Tensions and flashpoints aplenty in East Asia.
However, none of this changes the fact that China is a peer competitor to the United States and Russia is not. Pushing the Russians into the arms of the Chinese may prove to be a costly strategic blunder.
But don't let not knowing what you're talking about stop you from having an opinion. Carry on. I've decided this thread is much more fun as a spectator any way.
Well, in this case, 'pivoting to China' would be useless gesticulation.
Long gone history is irrelevant. This particular regime has not been waging wars let right and center. They have been prudent. The idea of US focussing to a greater extent on the security threats posed by a newly assertive China may have some merit but not at Europe's expense; it's not like the Chinese are an immediate threat to anyone.
That's ongoing. And there was the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979, current brutal treatment of Uighurs and the recent annexation of Tibet. Totally peaceful. But keep cherry picking the facts that best suit your pre-conceived judgments. Carry on!
A pivot to China doesn't simply mean a military pivot, since the United States does not have only military means. It would mean the United States would shift it's entire focus away from Europe towards Asia, military, economic, political, etc.
Those things are connected. Having to fund Ukraine with armament, billions of dollars and potentially future troops means all of those resources can't be spent in Asia, not to mention that domestic politics can only handle so much conflict. Money spent on military means cannot be spent to secure Eurasian, Oceanian and African markets, etc.
Quoting Olivier5
The power they've been using is mainly economic. China has the largest army in the world by active personnel, so clearly their power is also military. Also the number of aircraft carriers the PLAN has been producing suggests it has overseas ambitions, because that's what aircraft carriers are for - overseas power projection.
You could say something like: if China rises to hegemony peacefully, what's the problem?
To which I would answer: what makes you think the United States is willing to peacefully give up its position as hegemon?
There's no reason to 'pivot' anywhere. The US is perfectly capable of chewing gum and walk at the same time. They have the means to deal with several situations in parallel. Europe remains an important continent and Russia remains a threat.
Quoting Tzeentch
Unlike you, I don't have a crystal ball.
Anyway, do you think the US should 'pivot to China'?
Some ramblings and goings-on in the trenches...
Five killed, 22 injured in Ukrainian artillery attacks in Donetsk, Russian-backed separatists say (Jun 14, 2022)
The Ukrainians are shooting back. Civilian (and whatever) casualties are bad whoever does the shooting.
Ukraine: Russian warplanes pound Kyiv after weeks of calm (Jun 26, 2022)
[tweet]https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1540910335519064064[/tweet]
Revenge?
The Kremlin claimed it is possible to end the war by the end of today and suggests capitulation (Jun 28, 2022)
[sup](has link to original Russian source)[/sup]
Peskov says: Ukraine, just give up, and no more bombs (with a smile). :D Doesn't seem like the Ukrainians want to lie down and die, or kneel to Putin, though. (Who would?) Suppose Ukraine was to all-out capitulate. Realistically, what then? A number of resistance groups would likely form (to be labeled "terrorists" by Kremlin of course), and shooting would change some, but not quite cease. Anyone speaking of freeing Ukraine or suggesting resistance would be "dealt with". Kremlin would seek as many collaborators as needed/feasible, place puppets in strategic positions, happily collect weaponry supplied by foreigners, the usual. Would take time, but Putin's ambitions would be (at least partially) satisfied, and other neighbors of Putin's Russia would likely get (additionally) worried.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1542880146713083904[/tweet]
Russian missiles kill at least 21 in Ukraine’s Odesa region (Jul 1, 2022)
[sup]Losing sight of the simplest of facts can lose sight of things that (also) matter.
Ukraine was interested in joining NATO - protection against Putin's ambitions was as good a reason as any - and they sought membership (Sweden and Finland followed). With Putin's threats (and rattling the nuclear weaponry), Ukraine and NATO dropped such a membership. Threats worked. Bombing ongoing. Hopefully, we won't see the same with the Baltics (already NATO members), Sweden, Finland.
Ukraine is interested in joining EU, and closer trade relations. Still on the table. (Hey, UK's spot became vacant, though they still seem to argue about that on the isles. :smile:) Could be a win for Ukraine, more cooperation, import/export/exchanges, improving internal matters.
Ukraine seemed to be on a trajectory towards internal improvements, even if slowly in some areas. Political, social, open enough with international peers to consider internal changes. The materialization of Putin's ambitions put a halt to such likes, a setback.
Ukraine didn't choose Russia over others, but looked elsewhere, and also didn't threaten Russia. Putin chose bombs, potential friendship apparently off the table.[/sup]
This wrong footed policy has been contradicted by facts. $40 bl for Ukraine ain't no pivot. Also, it wasn't the question I asked (twice). I guess questions and topics don't matter much to you...
Am I not. Where have I said that how the US has dealt with let's say Guatemala, it has been privileged to do that?
I have continuously said that countries treat other countries very differently. So if when it comes to Sweden, the US is Mr. Nice Guy as when it comes to Central America, the US hasn't been similar as it has been to Nordic countries in general. Russia is quite friendly now with China, even if they have had a border war in their history post-WW2 and Chinese views many parts of Russia's Far East as conquered territory from it. That's the realpolitik you are after.
Yet NATO is an European defense organization. As much as Finland earlier hoped that EU would have a military capability of it's own, it's now NATO.
Quoting Tzeentch
My preference for NATO is clear. For example having an alliance with Sweden simply doesn't cut it. Besides, as NATO countries have not participated all US escapades slavishly, it is an organization made of sovereign states, even if the US has a huge role. Just look how much a hassle Turkey did in the last NATO meeting.
Quoting Tzeentch
And if you really think this is just a moral judgement, I disagree.
If the US uses "Finlandization" for countries to uphold those values the country (USA) was built on, I have no objections to that. We like democracy, the rule of law and things what the US Constitution talks about very much too. We are also a capitalist country. Hence that doesn't threaten us or our way of life. The Soviet Union had an different agenda. If the US becomes a dictatorship and throws away it's constitution and starts spreading it's totalitarianism to it's allies, perhaps then is time for us to resign from NATO (if the US doesn't resign itself from the organization with so annoying members).
In the end it really comes down to if the Great power is a bully, smaller countries will see it as a threat. If the Great Power is smart enough to behave cordially with smaller countries, there's not much fear or hate towards it.
Likely. I think the tactic here is to keep Ukrainians on the edge and remind that there's a war going on and it's everywhere.
You see, if the Russians would concentrate everything on the Donbas and no action were taken anywhere else in Ukraine, Ukrainians would feel it's just like 2014-2022, which they lived quite normally. So in order for the Ukrainians not to start enjoying the summer and going out freely to the cafe and basically just go on with their lives, a "random" missile attack every once a while to Kyiv or Odessa puts the fear back to peoples minds.
That's the thinking, but of course it is a flawed idea and just hardens the resolve of the Ukrainians. As usually targeting civilians does.
That may have been the case during what is called the "unipolar moment": the time after the Cold War ended where the United States was the most powerful country in the world by a large margin.
This is no longer the case, and the world has moved towards multipolarity: a situation in which there are several world powers who are roughly equal in power.
(Note this particular video is twelve years old. That's how long this transition has already been underway.)
The United States will need to apply a great deal more, if not all, of its power if it wishes to contain China.
You are dealing in justifications and shoulds / should nots.
Your stance seems to boil down to: Ukraine is justified in wanting to join the EU / NATO, because it prefers the EU / NATO and you present an argument as to why that is the case.
Therefore, Russia should not prevent Ukraine from joining the EU / NATO.
Yet here we are. No justifications and 'should nots' have prevented Ukraine from being invaded by Russia.
Moral judgements and idealism don't matter.
If I didn't represent your position correctly then please clarify what it is, because if this isn't it then it's completely unclear to me what is.
Really?
Opting to be neutral than be part of Warsaw pact and then opting joining NATO after a full out invasion of Ukraine, when the every country that Russia neighbors in the West has either Russian soldiers or is in NATO, doesn't sound to me as a moral judgement, but realpolitik.
Quoting Tzeentch
Either in NATO or with it's own nuclear deterrence, Ukraine would have prevented an all out attack from Russia.
Has worked with the Baltics: no frozen conflict in those countries, no Russian peacekeepers, no moving borders.
With us in NATO, the risk is higher for Russia to do a military intervention or to pressure us militarily.
Nuclear deterrence for Ukraine is a ship that has long since sailed. No point in discussing that.
As for joining NATO as a means to prevent a Russian attack - Russia attacked Ukraine precisely because it tried to join NATO. Since 2008 it was clear to all involved that NATO membership for Ukraine would mean war.
So if your point is, "they should have joined NATO to avoid conflict" - they tried, despite Russia's warnings, and now their country is devastated.
Says who? All this talk about future threats is nice but there is a very immediate threat right now in Russia...
Mearsheimer, for one, in the video I linked you.
Quoting Olivier5
If the United States wanted peace with Russia they could have it tomorrow. If they guarantee Ukraine will remain a neutral state and will not join NATO or the EU this war would be over.
But they can't. Not anymore. After 15 years of targeted foreign policy, plus all the rhetoric they have been using, it would be considered a humilation for the Biden administration and the United States as a whole.
That's exactly what makes this war so tricky.
Why would they do that?
To avoid being dragged into a war they are not willing to pay the price of victory for.
Don't forget Crimea and the Donbas, those people's Republics Russia vowed to defend when it started this war (and perhaps all Novorossiya?) :roll:
Perhaps after that the neutral Ukraine (what's left of it) would be OK for Russia.
After 2008, when it became clear the United States would not back down from incorporating Ukraine into NATO, and especially after the Maidan protests in 2013, Russia has sought to protect its strategic interests in Ukraine by force.
Previously, Russian strategic interests were protected by treaties between Ukraine and Russia. With regime change looming in Ukraine, and the United States expressly stating it wished to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, those treaties could no longer be relied on.
Right now it's clear Russia is going to take every strategically relevant region from Ukraine by force, and that map is likely a pretty accurate depiction of the territories they're after - predictably all linked to (access to) the Black Sea; Russia's primary strategic interest in Ukraine.
It's not rocket science. In fact, it's pretty obvious. The reason no one talks about the elephant in the room is because that elephant (the United States) controls the narrative in the west.
No.
I've said all along that NATO enlargement has been one reason.
But just why is it so utterly difficult for you to admit that Russia has all along had territorial objectives for it's war in Ukraine (starting with Crimea)?
It's not a wrong perspective, it's a genuine reason for the war also.
What are you talking about? I outright stated it:
Quoting Tzeentch
If you want to argue that Russia has had these territorial ambitions before 2008 then you'll have to provide some proof.
Well, I have referred to post-Soviet era history, now many times. But of course, as this is a very active thread it might not get noticed. But basically the row especially about Crimea started basically immediately as the Soviet Union collapse. There's a lot of proof
(see Giving Crimea to Ukraine Was Illegal, Russians Rule : Commonwealth: Parliament’s vote brings tensions between the two powers close to the boiling point.)
(see A CRIMEAN CRISIS THE BLACK SEA PENINSULA IS THE LATEST FLASH POINT IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION)
And way more history would show this case... but I guess that should do it. It's not just Putin who came up with the idea that Crimea (and Novorossiya) are basically part of Russia. Some would put it into the "Make Russia great again!" agenda.
The Kremlin line. Others apparently bought it wholesale. Portrayed like this by some:
It's worth keeping in mind that Ukrainian NATO membership would primarily mean limiting Russia's ability to move/act freely. And anti-missile systems in Ukraine would mean a decreased nuclear threat from Russia — defensive again, a constraint on the feasibility of Putinian ambitions.
Sure, Ukrainian NATO membership might have been seen as a threat to/by Russia, or some Russians. (Odd how Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland didn't/don't consider NATO a threat, though?)
When Putin and compadres started rattling the nukes, NATO responded by dropping Ukraine's NATO membership application, and, after a bit of whining, Zelenskyy conceded the membership. On public record. The NATO excuse stopped being much of a reason a while back. Dropping it hasn't changed much on the attackers' part — they've kept the blasted bombing up, and that affects the Ukrainians on the ground.
Sweden and Finland seeking membership as protective measures (like Ukraine) have been met with a casual, yet vaguely ominous, response from Putin.
NATO as an excuse, a pretext, carries more weight than NATO as a viable reason. But I'm re-repeating, much like others.
Quoting Peskov (Jun 28, 2022)
Quoting Evgeny Vladimirovich
Quoting Victor B
If you read the articles you'll see that it's exactly the same concerns that lead to tensions then as today - Russian access to the Black Sea.
And lowe and behold, after 2008 and 2013 can't we objectively state the Russians were right to view Ukraine as an unreliable partner when it came to such a crucial strategic matter as access to the Black Sea?
This doesn't support your view of Russian imperialism. In fact, drawing lines all the way back to 1992 (I didn't know they existed, to be fair, so thanks for that) pulls the rug under all of this "Madman Putin" rhetoric. Apparently this issue has existed for three decades already and, sadly, it has now reached its boiling point.
It would limit Russia's influence in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and the Middle-East significantly. That's the importance of Crimea and Sevastopol, Odessa and land bridges to these areas.
That's what's at stake here.
Maybe it's your opinion that it's not worth fighting a war over, but the Russians disagree and so they have made clear since 2008.
Quoting jorndoe
Because Sweden and Finland aren't all that relevant to Russia strategically.
Quoting jorndoe
You call it a pretext, but after the 2008 NATO summit and 2013 Maidan protests, 2017 legislation being passed expressly stating that it is Ukraine's objective to become part of NATO, and continued attempts at incorporation into the European Union, isn't it more than obvious that the Russians take such words with a grain of salt?
I've already argued that all of this context matters, and that NATO / EU's role in this cannot be ignored. And you don't have to take my word for it, since this comes from independent experts like Mearsheimer and Chomsky.
I'd love to hear an expert make a serious case for why the invasion of Ukraine is an act of unprovoked Russian agression / imperialism, and why all this context should be ignored. I've yet to see anything of the sort.
The vice president of Russia saying in the 1990's that Crimea is part of Russia?
The Duma deciding that the joining of Crimea to Ukraine in the 1950's was an illegal act?
If those aren't proofs of territorial ambitions on the highest level, I don't know what is.
I just have to simply disagree with you on this one.
Quoting Tzeentch
Access which Russia actually has even without Crimea. (Remember where Sochi and overall Krasnodar Krai are).
Hence your argument would make more sense if it would be to have control about the Sebastapol naval base. Which btw was leased until 2042, so good time to build perhaps a new base on Krasnodar Krai.
When you say "territorial ambitions" I take it to mean as much as territorial ambitions brought about by imperialism or some such.
I don't think you've shown any proof of that. Nor have you made any attempt at linking what was said in 1992 to what is happening today. To me it shows that the same concerns that prompted Russia's invasion of Ukraine today were what created tensions back then.
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
Sevastopol is Russia's access to the Black Sea, and the source of its influence in the region.
It's no surprise that over the course of history many nations have attempted to hold the Crimean peninsula.
The question why the Russians don't simply carve a new Sevastopol out of the mountainside in Krasnodar Krai is simple; not only would it cost a lot of time and money, it's also a strategically inferior position. It's located on the edge of the Black Sea instead of in the middle, and it's seperated from Russia by a mountain range which makes it vulnerable.
Indeed. Yanukovych signed that deal. Yanokovych was then removed from office during the Maidan Revolution. Isn't the significance of that event already made clear by the fact that Russia's invasion of Crimea was launched in response to it?
I can't spell it out more clearly than I already have. You're basically spelling it out yourself at this point. It's up to you to connect the dots.
It seems you have very confusing ideas about just what contributes territorial ambitions and what don't.
Your position hinges almost entirely on the idea that the Russians act out of territorial greed (the "madman Putin" argument), and not on the protection of key strategic interests. Obviously the protection of Sevastopol and the Russian power projection in the Black Sea and the Middle-East cannot be classed under "territorial ambition".
Also, why don't you respond to the contents of my post?
Be it "protection of key strategic interests", "joining Crimea back to after an illegal act by the Soviet leadership" or whatever else, territory has been annexed and a full scale war is ongoing.
If you annex part of countries, I think that quite clearly shows you have (or had) territorial ambitions. That the Russians are even changing school curriculum at the occupied territorial doesn't seem like the annexations will stop (or the creation on new buffer states will end here).
You seem to believe that everything I've offered in terms of context are just pretenses that the Kremlin has used to disguise banal territorial greed.
I think such a stance is foolish, and even the sources or "proof" you have presented so far explicitly state they are part of this wider context which you seem to dismiss in favor of your view this was a 30 year old Russian scheme to expand their borders.
It matters (and, sure, there is a measure of blame to be tossed around), just not as much as Putin's ambitions and his imperialist compadres. Hasn't this been re-repeated often enough in the thread?
Quoting Tzeentch
So, a land grab it is?
[sup](From memory, Putin and compadres haven't complained much about Ukraine/EU relations, at least not as an excuse for invading/bombing Ukraine. By the way, the opinions/analyses of Mearsheimer matter as well, giving more angles; that being said, they're not the be-all-end-all of the situation.)[/sup]
I think the discussion played out awhile ago (at least for me). There's a difference of weight given to reasons for the war. I just don't see actual proof of the imperialist ambitions and put more weight on the consistent complaint of NATO expansion as opposed to sporadic and divergent expressions of tsaristic greatness or the artificial nature of Ukraine (and some of it is quoted too readily out of context).
The reason this weighing of reasons is so contentious because it's the difference between unprovoked and provoked aggression. But since we cannot read minds I don't see a resolution to the difference of opinion.
I would genuinely love to see some quality material that offers a different perspective.
If the Russians were to advance all the way to Paris, you would still wonder if it was not provoked.
Oh yes, what would be the provocation that Ukraine did? Pre-emptive attack? Threatening with an attack? No?
That for an independent country to seek safety by trying to join an international defense treaty, because it (obviously for a reason) felt threatened by it's neighbor?
What a horrible provocation!!!
And since we seem to be just fixated on just ONE issue about the war and repeat it again and again... so I'll just skip to my next answer: If Mexico would want that military alliance with China, wouldn't it then have to feel threatened by it's northern neighbor in order to try such a desperate Hail Mary pass?
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting jorndoe
Seems not be so. :roll:
None of that matters.
If that nothern neighbor is powerful, Mexico will have to take into account its northern neighbor's interests or face the consequences.
Your opinion of that northern neighbor does not matter.
Whether you believe the interests of that northern neighbor are legitimate does not matter.
All that matters are actions and their consequences. And every party involved was aware of the likely consequences of their actions in regards to Ukraine. Russia even explicitly stated what the consequences would be, and the fools went ahead anyway, and now Ukraine is in ruins.
The fact you're unable to see how we arrived at this disaster does not speak to your merit.
Neither does your opinion that Russia attacked Ukraine only because of NATO enlargement as a defensive manner. Seemingly not taking into account other issues like the fact that Russia see's Crimea and Novorossiya as part of Russia. Culturally, ethnically and historically.
Well, My opinion about my eastern neighbor does matter. And so does the opinion majority of my people. In fact so much, that for Putin our NATO membership is now a non-issue.
Appease dictators and totalitarian regime as much you want. If might makes right, then you really have to have that deterrence. Si vis pacem, parabellum. I say.
That's not an opinion I hold. But if you want to make the claim it's territorial greed there's a burden of proof on you, not me.
[sup](went over a tedious bunch of Kremlin/Putin? statements/actions and some commentaries from analysts again)
Feb 20, 2014: Russia grabs Crimea
Feb 24, 2022: Russia invades Ukraine
Jul 05, 2022: blasted bombing of Ukraine ongoing[/sup]
In retrospect, how accurate were Rumer and Weiss (Carnegie, 2021)?? Goemans (Rochester)??
The reality on the ground is that, with Putin's Russia looming on the horizon, security? was + is everyone's concern?; some have sought a NATO shield. Say, Hungary and Ukraine haven't sought protection from each other. Did Russia seek? protection from, say, China? Invading Russia isn't in NATO's charter(†), defending against Russian invasion is. Ukraine was + is like a sitting duck, and is being blasted.
[sup](†) not that attacking nuke-ratting Russia seems like a good idea anyway[/sup]
What (if anything) would it take for Russia to come out of (semi)isolation?
The city center of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, was struck for the first time, causing the destruction of dozens of buildings and houses.
By Benoît Vitkine (Moscow correspondent, Le Monde)
Posted yesterday at 11:03 a.m.
At 3 a.m. on the night of July 2 to 3, the inhabitants of the Russian region of Belgorod saw and heard on their soil what strongly resembled the effects of a war, and not of a simple "special operation" carried out on the territory of the neighboring country. Since February 24, this region of southern Russia bordering that of Kharkiv, Ukraine, has already been the target of bombardments – military objectives, refineries and, sometimes, isolated houses hit.
Nothing comparable with this night of July 3, at the end of which the governor counted, in the heart of the city of Belgorod, eleven residential buildings and thirty-nine houses damaged. Four people were killed: a Russian citizen and three members of a Ukrainian family from Kharkiv, who had taken refuge with relatives since the start of the conflict.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the city of 370,000 inhabitants was “knowingly” targeted by three Tochka-U type missiles carrying cluster munitions. These missiles were reportedly shot down by Russian anti-aircraft defenses. "After the destruction of the Ukrainian missiles, the remains of one of them fell on a house in the city ," said military spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
On videos published in the early morning by local media, however, one can see at least one strong explosion, the magnitude of which does not correspond to the simple fall of debris. The Russian side also claims to have shot down two Ukrainian TU-143 drones "laden with explosives" heading towards the city of Kursk, also close to the Ukrainian border.
As usual, the Ukrainian army did not comment on these accusations, but military experts in Kyiv questioned this version, citing missiles sent from Russia and shot down by Russia's own anti-aircraft defense. In support of this explanation, they report explosions heard in the Kharkiv region immediately after those of Belgorod.
Analysts from the Conflict Intelligence Team, an organization founded by independent Russian investigators, rather evoke Ukrainian strikes targeting military objectives and which Russian defense systems would have diverted from their trajectory.
In any case, the event is embarrassing and does not fit with the idea of ??a "special military operation" which, more than four months after its launch, "is going according to plan" , as repeated Vladimir Putin last week. In Moscow, officials brandished the usual threats of reprisals or "revenge" , but without really dwelling on them. A more surprising reaction was that of the Bishop of Belgorod, who called for prayers to end “the bloodbath taking place in Ukraine”.
The media showed restraint, the RIA-Novosti agency headlining for example, several hours after the events: “A series of explosions damages 39 houses in Belgorod” . The televisions, for their part, preferred to focus on the capture of the Ukrainian city of Lysytchansk from the “neo-Nazis” , which allows Moscow to control the entire Luhansk region.
Could the Belgorod episode mark an evolution in the conduct of the Russian "special operation" in Ukraine? It is difficult to imagine an intensification of the fighting, despite the threats of officials to abandon the "restraint" supposed to have been observed so far, but it should be noted that the announcement of this bombardment coincides with the deposition in the Duma of a bill providing for "special measures" to put the economy at the service of the army. This text, which incorporates certain elements of martial law, makes it possible to order companies to work on behalf of defence.
The article by Rumer and Weiss was good. I especially liked the point that was made about the situation being such that neither side is likely to back down, and also that a Russian military invasion is likely to be limited in scope (something that was confirmed by the number of Russian troops deployed).
Goemans's article not so much. It is filled with references to 'the Russian Empire' and 'Tsarist Russia' - unscientific, inflammatory nonsense that reeks of bias. His prediction was also that Russia would make a bid for the entirety of Ukraine - something which, again, is unlikely given the number of troops Russia has deployed being a magnitude below what would be required to invade all of Ukraine.
Quoting jorndoe
Russia is most definitely not acting "genocidally" in Ukraine.
I understand that the violence inherent to war is repulsive. It should be to everyone. But to call Russia's conduct in Ukraine 'genocidal' is tasteless and tone deaf.
Quoting jorndoe
Russia under Putin has at least until 2008 looked for closer ties with Europe. Which is no surprise. Neither Europe nor Russia has much to gain from conflict and a lot to gain from cooperation. However, Russia is a big country and a former super power, so it's not surprising it didn't accept US vassal status that NATO membership amounts to.
Quoting jorndoe
For the United States to stop backing it into a corner. The United States doesn't want Russia and Europe to get too cozy - that's part of the US's strategy of keeping the continental powers split up and fighting each other, so they cannot push back against the United States.
Nice strawman. I have in fact discussed this with ssu in this very thread.
I’d say that’s likely.
But regardless of the motivation, how would the US react to China building a few missiles on the border?
To dismiss or downplay the threat of NATO to Russia is not only silly, but it ignores the evidence.
That’s not justification for what Russia has done — but it’s a legitimate concern, and one they’ve been warning about for years.
- Chomsky
Lucid as ever at 93.
Quoting Tzeentch
Maybe?
It so happens that very few like authoritarian regimes, oppressing freedom (press, expression, critics, association, assembly, Internet), doing away with political rivals/opposition, discriminating (homosexuals, minorities), implementing laws that can mean whatever + hefty sentencing, assassinating (allegedly, true, yet then there are plausibility assessments, process of elimination, and such), with little accountability, embodying corruption, eroding trust, ...
Presumably you're not among those few?
Connect the dots, there's a sufficient reason, it's hardly new or anything, now with rattling of nukes and missiles too, ...
Suppose for the sake of argument that Putin or Russia abandoned that crap, took substantial measures, let trust build, then what do you think would happen (semi)isolation-wize?
Ukraine/Russia: Violations of cultural rights will impede post-war healing – UN expert (OHCHR; May 25, 2022)
What happens in Paris does not always stay in Paris.
That never stopped the United States from getting along with anyone.
Is the point you're going to make really that if only Russia were to act more like the United States that things would be better?
Where do you think Putin learned all of this?
Or is it a "Do as we say, not as we do" kind of deal?
That explains why I don't consider what has been put forward as proof of greater imperialist ambitions. You can reason a contrario to get an idea what I would consider proof.
Quoting jorndoe
Sure it has caused action and distrust — it has critics criticizing all over the place, including in European countries and the US (the former of which you say is subject to a nefarious "divide and conquer" plot), it has nations looking elsewhere, as we've seen — except there are less critics criticizing in North Korea, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia (theocracy), Iran (theocracy), ...
[sup]By the way, the US/Saudi Arabia relations have also been criticized by people all over (including in the US). From memory, I think Trump of all people called it out. (Maybe I'll post some sort of critique of my own here on the forum. Let me give it a think.)[/sup]
Quoting Tzeentch
No, you can't have missed it or you skirted past (straight to the requisite party line). Quoted above. It's now about:
Quoting jorndoe
So, what do you think?
Keep in mind that "two wrongs don't make a right", not going to take your bait to futilely defend the US, the thread already established that everyone's evil remember?
[sup](Part of this isn't some off-the-ground abstraction but more straightforward; how about you go to Moscow and set up comprehensive criticism of Putin right there, and then go to London and do something similar with respect to the UK? What might be the difference (if you ever make it to London)?)[/sup]
The people you've called liars in this thread, actually didn't lie. So yes, you've insulted plenty of people as a result - I even demonstrated the mechanism at one point. Except they have thicker skin and don't whine about it. I'll also remind you that I engaged you in good faith twice on this page, the first time you raise a strawman, the second time you pretend my reply is a non-answer when it clearly isn't, since ssu understood it before. You even feel the need to sneak in a suggestion about some kind of defect to my character. So, well done. Enjoy the illusion of the higher ground.
Quoting jorndoe
Quoting jorndoe
Freedom of speech is a great thing, but it's far from the only measure one could use to determine a nation's development. In fact, I would argue that the amount of death and destruction a nation exports is a far better measure, and for that the United States takes the cake, and it's not even close.
Earlier you shared an article calling Russia's actions in Ukraine 'genocidal'. How would the United States' conduct in say, Vietnam, compare? 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians and 1,100,000 North Vietnamese / Viet Cong fighters dead by official estimates.
But at least the benevolent United States allowed its citizens to openly criticize this butchery. How fortunate the Vietnamese must've felt to be murdered by such a free and open society.
Quoting jorndoe
The Grand Chessboard: American Grand Strategy and It's Geostrategic Imperatives
I would recommend reading it fully, but read chapter 2 titled "The Eurasian Chessboard" to understand the underlying geopolitical landscape that to a large extent dictates how great powers act on the world stage, and especially the actions of the United States in relation to Europe and the Eurasian continent.
If the idea of the United States using divide & conquer sounds like a 'nefarious plot' to you, that tells me you haven't read enough on the subject.
Quoting jorndoe
Quoting jorndoe
That's what Russia did prior to 2008, and things were looking good. As I said before, Putin has been moving towards Europe since he came to power. He was liked in the West until 2008, and even until 2014 to an extent.
Why do you think Russia and Europe built all these pipelines? Why did Merkel and Marcon for the longest time try to stop the Americans from provoking the Russians?
The question you ask has already been answered in recent history. Cooperation is possible. The actual question is: what changed for the situation to get where it is now? And in my view that has had to do primarily with the United States.
Oh really? You have an example?
Just FYI, I personally witnessed the optimism, friendships, the events, openness that followed, in the 1990s. People want(ed) to become friends, to cultivate positive relationships. Heck, I think it made it into popular culture/entertainment in the US. (Though I'm sure this could be construed as propaganda by the so inclined.)
Russian election: Biggest protests since fall of USSR (Dec 10, 2011)
Worldwide Protests Against the Russian Duma Election Fraud (Dec 12, 2011)
Robert Conquest: Russia's Election Protests and the Soviet Past (updated Nov 14, 2017)
Moscow Protesters Stage Series Of One-Person Pickets In Call For Free Elections (Aug 17, 2019) "illegal mass gatherings"
(at some point I'm going to quit all this recall, might be futile here anyway)
And so, here it is again (again):
If you keep denying/skirting that stuff, and how changes might foster increased optimism, trust, further and closer relations, etc, then so be it (talk about tunnel vision). I can tell you with some confidence that a few Europeans would welcome this and be happy to build on it; yep, it's happened before, until the regressive moves reached a threshold.
Party line? What kind of cheap rhetorical tricks are these? I go against your preferred narrative so I must be a Kremlin propagandist?
Up yours.
How about you come with a single coherent argument to support your position, instead of all this babble?
Quoting jorndoe
What are you expecting me to respond to that?
That I believe those things are bad and regrettable?
Nope.
Quoting Tzeentch
You're supposed to consider it and respond to it, not diverge off to something else. (Name-calling and such is perhaps telling.) Unless you genuinely don't think such changes would do a thing.
No, you are not, but you live within the sphere of influence of the Kremlin and as such, you may not be at liberty to criticize them much.
Quoting jorndoe
I don't think my opinions on what changes to Russia would turn it into a more preferable state are in any way relevant to the question of Ukraine, and how it could have been avoided.
Quoting jorndoe
You are referring to yourself that called me a Kremlin propagandist, I assume?
Quoting Olivier5
I don't live anywhere near Russia, but whatever makes you feel better.
Maybe you two should lay off the copium and come with some actual positions supported by arguments, instead of this parade of nothings.
And if you can't, maybe it's time to draw your conclusions and save yourselves some time and effort?
How often do people have to disagree with you that it's going to dawn on you reasonable people can disagree without them being liars, propagandists or not at liberty to speak? You can rest assured you're more often wrong than right since whatever you know is but a tiny fraction of all the possible knowledge out there.
OK, well, FYI I tossed something together over at: Defendant: Saudi Arabia (poll)
A start anyway. There are also topics like heavy patriarchism/female rights, Sunni versus Shia, exploitation, Yemen, etc. If the poll says "Guilty", then there's at least some consensus here to question relations with Saudi Arabia, and that includes the US — *gah* the unholy mess of oil + economies + Middle Eastern situation + politics + sponsorships — *ough* could go up in flames.
[sup]Posted in Humanities and Social Sciences; wasn't really sure if that's the best spot.[/sup]
Want me to repeat what you were asked? (Nah.)
Quoting Tzeentch
I did? Nah.
(Maybe I should forget about expecting you to honestly respond.)
I'm sorry, I confused you with another poster.
Would it have been possible to avoid the ongoing horror in Ukraine? If Ukraine had yielded some territory and agreed not to join NATO - would that have led to a long term peace? Or would that have only been a temporary stopgap measure and eventually Russia would have invaded anyway? I don't know - and no one else in this forum can answer that question with any certainty. It's possible that even Putin himself could not answer that question. It's all too depressing.
That's a presentation about the Annales approach to history, also known as histoire totale.
Did you know Dostoyevski's Crime & Punishment and Tolstoy's War & Peace is a discussion around this exact point? These books were published in parts in a literary magazine (if that story is true, I heard if from someone else).
Thanks - interesting read.
My understanding (misunderstanding?) of Tolstoy is that he would say that the ultimate causes of these events are beyond mankind's comprehension - and that they are inevitable. But what do I know.
Interesting. That would be a version of historical determinism, ie what Popper called historicism. The idea that men don't do history.
Waging war has worked well for him in the past. It would seem reasonable that he would turn to that same tool again.
But I've also thought about the reasons wars happen. One is war profiteers. They can't start wars, but they can grease the tracks. Same with basic human bloody-mindedness. Or maybe it's not human. Maybe just the male part of the species is like that, and not even all of them, but again, that alone won't usually cause a war, but it facilitates.
The problem with looking at profiteering and aggression is that these elements are there in every war, so they don't tell you anything about specific wars. For that, you do need to look at personalities and recent events
My limited experience in life tells me people frequently fail to give weight to things like the whims and predilections of powerful people. No one wants to think it could be that simple and stupid. No, it has to be like chess or something.
Not really. Not usually. Often, the answers are right on the surface and if you look too deeply, you're getting further from the truth, not closer.
One of the things I notice is that people pour their own angst and fears into interpretations of events. Never a good idea, not if seeing the truth is the goal.
The United States has been moving towards incorporation of Ukraine into western power structures since at least the Bush administration without pause. Every subsequent administration has doubled down on this policy.
Russia has since 2008 made clear that turning Ukraine into a western bulwark would be a considered an existential threat to Moscow, and a red line.
If the United States was completely committed to incorporating Ukraine, how much agency did the Ukrainians really have?
In my opinion, it should have been the European nations to veto both NATO and EU membership to Ukraine, and force the United States to cease stirring up trouble in their backyards.
I think this conflict was entirely avoidable if the United States had accepted the fact that Ukraine was a bridge too far.
Would it have led to long-term peace? We can't be sure, I think it's certainly possible. In the time between 1989 and 2008 relations between Europe and Russia were improving, economic ties between the two regions were expanding. Ironically, Putin was seen by many western politicians as a sensible leader.
Would Russia have invaded Ukraine, sacrificing all of this good will, if it did not have sufficient reason to fear Ukraine would slip into the western sphere? This is admittedly conjecture, but I don't think so.
KGB archives document Red Army’s atrocities against Ukrainian village in USSR after 1945 (Paul A Goble; EP; Jan 5, 2021)
It took Red Army ‘a decade’ to subdue Western Ukraine after 1945, Russian specialist on Ukraine warns Kremlin (Paul A Goble; EP; Jan 21, 2022)
Russia’s Brutal War in the Donbas Proves Ukraine Can’t Win (Daniel Davis; 19FortyFive; Jul 5, 2022)
High death tolls in the past. A bulging Russia doesn't seem to sit well with Ukraine. A Russian takeover isn't peaceful, and what follows could be...not so good. Don't think they're likely to just give up. As some Russian commentator mentioned, they're not fighting for a person, Zelenskyy, or to attack other nations, they're fighting to repel the invaders.
A Moscow court sentenced deputy Alexei Gorinov to 7 years in jail for criticizing Russia’s military actions in Ukraine (Jul 8, 2022)
"Special operation", not "war", dammit. (Yeah, children have been among the casualties.)
According to the Donetsk People's Republic, 2356 have been killed in action and 9713 wounded in action, in 2022:
Review of the social and humanitarian situation that has developed on the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic as a result of hostilities in the period from 02 to 08 July 2022 (Jul 9, 2022)
(The wording here isn't exactly unbiased, take with a grain of salt as usual.)
Quoting Vyacheslav Volodin (Jul 7, 2022)
Quoting Maria Zakharova (Jul 7, 2022)
Quoting Dmitry Medvedev (Jul 8, 2022)
:brow:
Well, obviously it's Russia being attacked, not Ukraine, Russia is the victim here, and Johnson is a murderer of Ukrainians, it's others that are arrogant, not Putin, but all will fail. (Nevermind who's doing the bombing on the ground, and what happens to other voices.)
People don't have to like Johnson, many agree he's a clown already, to see through the propaganda. Broad targets, mothers of Russian soldiers, Ukrainians, ... I predict it'll be taken in, lapped up, and propagated.
Maybe it's a thing of his?
Putin Challenges the West (Again) (Jan 27, 2022)
Putin challenges West to fight Russia on the battlefield: ‘Let them try’ (Jul 8, 2022)
Wouldn't it be more fruitful/forward-looking to try building relationships?
Kazakhstan withdraws from CIS agreement on currency committee – UNIAN (Jul 10, 2022)
I guess Georgia left a good decade ago.
Marc Bennetts opines:
End of the bromance: why Xi is wary of going to Moscow (Jul 7, 2022)
Not sure I'd be so quick to assess. Besides, maybe Xi just doesn't like anyone. :)
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1544361566082109445[/tweet]
Messy.
As predicted, the West is calibrating its support to Ukraine for a slow loss (to avoid nuclear weapons being used), and, also as predicted, the shoulder launch missiles are not effective as a basis for counter offensives or defending artillery, and the conversation has nearly completely switched to artillery and range considerations with the euphoria of the flood of Javelines and imminent victory a distant dream.
Nevertheless, propaganda would certainly degrade the conversation and I think warrant at least responding to.
Quoting jorndoe
Zero reason to believe this means much of anything.
Just a few months before the war Russian special forces deployed to Kazakhstan to support the Kazakhstan government against a riot / coup attempt.
Quoting jorndoe
We have zero clue what Xi actually thinks and the idea that what the West thinks morally about things (what seems to be called "politics" in this article) actually matters to Xi is farcical.
Furthermore, Russia has the second largest arms industry in the world and is trained on all its own equipment, has no shortage of equipment, and mostly Chinese arms are copies of Russian / Soviet designs (often under license). There is zero reason to believe Russia could even make any effective use of arms coming from China.
What Russia needs from China are industrial equipment, industrial services and IT services and systems, and as long as it can get this from China then sanctions have essentially no chance of causing any major disruption to the Russian economy (may cause a recession and lot's of inconvenience, but that's very different to critical capital equipments and infrastructure and industrial maintenance services being unavailable).
Quoting jorndoe
You can find not only US state senators and congress people, but also at the federal level, who have said all sorts of absolutely crazy and un realistic things.
It would be maybe worth discussing if it was Kadyrov, but even then it doesn't really matter much either, if it's just sabre rattling and exaggeration and playing to his base.
None of this seems to have much relevance at all nor form part of any thesis.
If you just want to drop in little trivia or propaganda, supporting no argument just "lookie here" and "oh, over there", just go on twitter or write a blog.
The West has backed off further escalation and current weapons supplies do not seem to even match consumption rates of ammunition. The soviet calibre seem to have run out or about to (according even to Ukraine) and the West has not even supplied sufficient NATO calibre replacements.
Unfortunately, even though the West has effectively given up on Ukraine and is working on deescalation, taking ascension of Finland and Sweden in NATO as some sort of Ukrainian victory, there seems at the moment no resolution feasible of the war.
All sides can be blamed morally for that, but it is the current reality.
Since the escalation cycle has been ended by the West, Ukraine has very low possibility of military victory of any sort nor potential for a stalemate.
The media focuses on disparity of one weapons system at a time, generally content when there is some at least symbolic victory of at least some of that system being sent to Ukraine, but all this is nearly entirely meaningless if Russia has overwhelming force in both quantity and types of systems (such as air power).
For sure, Russia has not matched Western expectations of casualties of personnel and equipment in fighting small militaries in the middle east, but it seems pretty clear now that taking casualties of equipment and people is not a problem for Russia in continuing the war, and Ukrainian losses are now even admitted by Ukraine to be far higher.
Sadly, Ukrainian leadership did not see the best time for a negotiated peace was at the start (or before) the war, and completely overestimated the effective control of popularity on social media to dictate Western policy: social media popularity dictates policy insofar as it happens to already be the chosen Western policy. I think the long social media campaign by Ukraine for a no-fly zone is the best example of that; political capital and intellectual energy was spent on that rather than diplomacy or other things certainly due to the belief that enough likes and calls for the idea would result in it's implementation (rather than just humiliating "yeah, no").
Without any realistic prospect of "defeating" Russia on the battlefield, nor with sanctions, and no political possibility of compromising (which, certainly, Russia can be blamed about as well in the current situation; just the difference is they are taking territory and don't need to care as much about compromise), and without further military escalation by the West, the war will unfortunately simply drag on until Russia runs out of steam to continue advancing, which could be soon or in years to come.
In parallel to the war, as further sanctions seem now completely off the table, and the political mood now is workarounds, the global economy will simply adapt to the sanctions situation making them less and less effective over time.
In short, prognosis is more war. Sadly.
I agree. Putin could stop any time he wants to. He continues because it's benefitting him.
Yes, this is the political realism perspective.
The core problem with Western policy is that if you're not willing to go and fight with your own armies, then, by definition, it's not a moral imperative to fight the Russians.
However, by essentially weaponising the moralising to justify as much escalation as possible, within the bounds of the common sense political realism that a avoiding a nuclear war is the actual moral imperative in the situation, you end up with this strange beast of an aborted escalation: Ukraine is encouraged, financed, supplied to fight but can't win; sanctions are half measures (not to say full measures would be effective) and may very well hurt the West more than Russia; and no diplomacy is possible as each side has paid too high a cost to let go ... Russia of real land and Ukraine of their fantasies.
Of course, people can blame Putin for equal or larger moral failings all they want, but assuming Putin "wants to expand the Empire" then Western policies have essentially been a gift to Putin -- not doing anything about the neo-Nazi's secures domestic support for the war; encouraging Ukraine to enter total war and not negotiate allows Putin to make super minimum offers that, once rejected, justify doing things the hard way, and, of course, giving Ukrainians enough support to hurt Russia ... but not enough to win in any military sense, may indeed kill some Russians but it does not effect policy makers nor the eventual outcome much -- the Russians will extract their revenge later ... or right now in shutting off the gas.
Regretting the immorality of humankind is one activity. Trying to understand the world is another.
The second activity is better done by hypothesizing, gathering data, and allowing a likely picture to take shape. I'm relatively lucky when it comes to this because I'm not weighted down by hatred of any particular group of people in the world.
Agreed.
However, what I would add to that is that the only moral goals are feasible goals.
Political realism is not an anti-moral or even amoral perspective, it's simply trying to choose the best possible achievable outcome depending on one's morality. Of course what's real and what's moral is up for debate.
What is comfortable and easy is of course to ignore both subjects, and live in a fantasy that has nothing to do with reality, and care nothing for the troubles of others.
Sometimes justice is just unavailable. You don't give up on justice because of that, though. You keep struggling, because it might become feasible tomorrow.
Completely agreed.
What is feasible in the far future is fairly wide open. The world has significantly changed from the distant past, and it is reasonable to assume can be significantly different in the far future.
The complicated part is working backwards to what is actually effective to do today to contribute to a better feasible future.
And, as you say, just hanging on in case circumstances change is morally superior to giving in. Again, total agreement there.
Furthermore, even if the "most feasible" best option had a 1% chance of success (that our chances of extinction or AI enslavement or something was 99%) ... it's still the best option.
Feasible doesn't necessarily mean probable, just at least some chance of working and not delusional.
The best moral choice is whatever the "most feasible" option is. From a moral point of view, it does not matter how probable the most feasible way to achieve the best moral objectives are, only that other choices are worse.
How I conceptualised this when I was younger was that if I agree the goal of continuing humanity was paramount, if not "the" moral imperative certainly up there and should be compatible with other moral imperatives, then it does not matter if my actions extend the continuation of humanity a billion years, a million, a thousand, a hundred, a day or a second or a micro second.
If I say continuation of humanity is a good thing, then I must choose the actions that continue humanity (on some net present value probability distribution) a second than not. If that's just consuming less resources myself, the best I can do, then so be it. If I can contribute more, great.
True. Here there may be differing cultural values that afflict regional problems. As an American, I was taught early the saying "Give me liberty, or give me death." And as it happens, this is exactly how I feel.
Maybe there are places in the world where this attitude would not be helpful. What's needed here is not a re-education of the American people. We are what we need to be. We are what circumstances have made us. We aren't going to change. And furthermore, we are not wrong about what's right and moral for us.
What's needed is a global government which can tune into the particular aspects of regional conflicts and deal with them effectively. That does not exist yet.
Military briefing: is the west running out of ammunition to supply Ukraine? (Jul 11, 2022)
Ukraine claims arms depot attack in occupied Kherson with Himars rockets (Jul 12, 2022)
A private company had 64 howitzers lying around; probably made a fortune off them.
Yeah, no end in sight. :/ The Ukrainians aren't likely to give up (earlier posts); Putin's Russia has become committed, seemingly to take over as much of Ukraine as they can (earlier posts).
Ukraine, even if well-armed, is a bit like sitting ducks, the defenders, nowhere else to go; Russia, the attackers, aren't being invaded, have a certain freedom of movement, and they're learning to use it, or will.
Diplomatic avenues have been fruitless.
For Ukraine, it would be like going half way to giving up, heavy concessions, and with what guarantees/consequences? It seems they're not down with repeating history nor with Putin; previous concessions didn't stop the bombing anyway.
For Russia, why talk when you can take? Putin, Peskov, and team might as well hire some good actors as diplomats; whatever they say will be dictated by military feasibilities in any case, Kremlin war strategists.
For diplomacy to have a chance, something would have to change.
As it looks, Putin's Russia has the moral low ground. At least someone is standing up to the bombing bully.
A new strategy for Moscow During this year’s State Duma race, Russia’s ruling party hopes to split the opposition, deceive inattentive voters, and (as always) mobilize state employees (Mar 26, 2021)
Nine Million Russians 'Deprived Of Right To Be Elected' (Jun 23, 2021)
No OSCE observers for Russian parliamentary elections following major limitations (Aug 4, 2021)
This Is a Uniquely Perilous Moment (Mar 12, 2022)
Humorous...sort of... :)
Doppelganger Dirty Trick In Russian Election Spawns Online Mockery (Sep 8, 2021)
(would have raised some eyebrows/investigations in the countries I call home)
Russia is a prominent (nuke-wielding) power on the world stage, apparently seeking respect. Yet, not so interested in building trust, which would go a long way to improving things, unlike fear. Not about others imposing their cultures onto Russian people, but about Russian relations, friendships, trying. What's the deal...? Would Russians see willingness to negotiate, compromise, seeking friendships, as a weakness, and that's enough...? Don't know, but some have suggested such like.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/13/russia-and-ukraine-near-to-grain-export-agreement-un-turkey
That's a bit of good news, given the horrors here. When this will end, who knows. But it's still on going, it's been way too long and way too dangerous.
A little perspective.
Quoting RIA (Jun 28, 2022)
Quoting RIA (Jul 3, 2022)
Quoting ???? (Jul 3, 2022)
Quoting Mykhailo Podolyak (Jul 3, 2022)
Not really any end in sight. :/ I wonder what to make of it. Has there been unknown pressure in Moscow? ...? Will Belarus get drawn in? One can just speculate, even a couple of weeks later. Peskov says the Ukrainians have no will of their own (despite evidence to the contrary, including in this thread). Part of the show I guess, while the bombs are going, and people on the ground are taking the hits. Would be awful if Ukraine is turned into a country of haters.
Zelensky says that Russia must be formally designated a terrorist state, and he has good grounds for saying that. Of course it's impossible for NATO or the West to join the fight, on pain of nuclear armageddon, although exploiting that fear (along with the economic pain and mass starvation) is all part of the Putin playbook.
Sorry, my aim was more to expose Pesky Peskov, maybe for analysis.
His comments seem kind of transparently slanted - while the bombs are going, and people on the ground are taking the hits.
Yeah, there are all kinds of reports.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1547517019624439810[/tweet]
I still think the Ukrainians will win, and resoundingly so. They are free men fighting an army of slaves, and the weapon imbalance is progressively evening up.
What oddly sociopathic hopes you two have.
Wouldn't it be better if fewer people died?
For Ukraine to win, many, many more people will have to die. Ukrainian citizens, Russian 'slaves', Ukrainian soldiers (the 'free men').
A negotiated settlement with concessions on both sides would not require any more people to die. Why would you not want that?
Talk about wishful thinking...
Here we have gaslighting.
Here we don't have gaslighting.
At this point I just feel the need to call it when I see it.
All true. So you think it's OK that other people die to uphold your personal moral code about not negotiating with terrorists?
He probably agrees with your caricature of him, yes, no doubt.
Ok then, no negotiations.
"We" are going to "beat the Russians", and who do you suppose is going to make that sacrifice to uphold your ideals?
I'm guessing probably not yourselves?
Let's hear your plans then.
This post has nothing to say about my views, so I have no idea what you're on about.
I'm sorry too.
Are you kind of suggesting that Ukrainians are supposedly going to sacrifice their lives to uphold Wayfarer's personal ideals?
Agreed. But the question is what we ought do about it, not what we ought call it.
That's the essence of the idealist approach to international politics.
When states that we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists, on behalf of whose ideals do you believe they're speaking other than their own?
Saying no to negotiations means one thing: to carry through this war to its bitter end. That will mean the destruction of Ukraine and the loss of thousands more lives, if not worse.
This thread is drenched with this type of naive idealism - the belief that one's personal dislike of Putin, however justified, should serve as a basis upon which to decide whether the conflict in Ukraine should be prolonged, and thus how many should continue to sacrifice their lives.
What a joke that you of all people should say that.
I'm not making it personal. I'm calling apples apples. In this thread we are debating on Ukraine and some do so from their personal beliefs and fancies (idealism), and I'll happily argue why that is wrong and what the implications of it are.
We all discuss from our POV, you included. This is unavoidable. You too have beliefs and ideas. If you don't, I'm sorry for you.
No, of course not. But my moral judgement is irrelevant.
Quoting Wayfarer
I have no opinion on what the Ukrainians should do.
The United States and Europe could have done much to prevent this conflict and I believe they should have. I also believe the United States and Europe should not cheer on Ukraine on the road to its own destruction for the sake of hurting Russia.
Quoting Olivier5
Yes, but do I really need to explain to you the difference between realism and idealism, which is where we fundamentally differ?
So no matter what Putin does, the fault is with the West?
But...
Quoting Wayfarer
...in response to....
Quoting Olivier5
...is advocating a policy (Ukrainians beating Russians in a war).
If you want to just register outrage, then just post "isn't Putin horrid". Pointless, but I'm sure everyone would agree.
No, given the geopolitical context in which trouble in Ukraine and Crimea started, which goes back to at least 2008, the fault is predominantly with the United States (and Europe by virtue of its complacency and blind adherence to the Americans).
In no way does that justify Russia's invasion. It does however give us an idea on where to look for solutions to this conflict.
This geopolitical context is explained in detail by thinkers such as Noam Choamsky and John Mearsheimer, both of which I have shared in this thread, and they come to that conclusion.
I'd love to see you try, because the way I see it, it's your idea of what is realistic vs. the rest of the world's. A facile example: it is IMO ridiculously unrealistic and even lunatic to suggest that Ukrainians are sacrificing their lives to uphold Wayfarer's personal ideals.
In reality, it just so happens that Wayfarer agrees with the values for which Ukrainians are fighting.
In short, Russia is the cornered cat and basic self-perservation drive kicks in and then...all bets are off, oui monsieur?
Why did W do it in Iraq?
Hubris.
I don't need to try, since the realist - idealist split has been something that has characterized international politics for a long time and are concepts widely accepted in academia. If you want to argue that they don't exist that'll be for you to prove.
Idealism Versus Realism
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting Olivier5
Indeed. They are speaking on behalf of their own ideals, they just happen to correspond. And to suggest such ideals should be a driving factor behind the decisionmaking process is, you guessed it, typically idealist.
This couldn't be farther from the realist perspective that argues actions and consequences, not ideals, are what matter.
There's one and only one answer why people do things these days - MONEY!
So as a realist, are you saying that US presidents should keep on making profitable deals with dictatorships, human rights be damned? Kindly confirm whether this is what you mean by "realism".
Quoting Tzeentch
That is a category error. Actions and consequences must be assessed against some sort of value scale in the end. Otherwise, how do you know which option is the best? Realism is a means to an end. And the end is defined by your value system.
As a realist I'll say that that's exactly what they'll do. (Note: there is no "should" in there) And lowe and behold, you just summed up United States foreign policy.
And as a realist, you think that policy is wise, correct?
https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/ideologies/resources/marvin-ingle-blood-sacrifice-totem/
I am concerned with how states act and why they act that way. I'm no policymaker. If you want my non-realist opinion: states are run by crooks. Period. I expect nothing even vaguely resembling wisdom from any state actor, only self-aggrandisement.
Quoting Evgeny Vladimirovich (Jun 28, 2022)
Been mentioned a few times in the thread on whatever angles. Comparatively, it's a fairly large population, and they're in a defense position.
The invasion or bombings/ruinage (or something at least), could end by the words of Putin or one of his compadres.
Mykhailo Podolyak has stated some conditions ...
... but, with continuing bombings/ruinage, Peskov's comments, concessions (mentioned already), etc, the Ukrainians are (increasingly) distrusting whatever comes out of the Kremlin. (Actually, I'm guessing most are and have been for some time.)
There are journalists, foreign news teams, whatever, scattered over Ukraine; they've been largely contained or disabled (or banned) in Russia and areas under Russian control.
Has a measure of "realism" ? @Tzeentch.
As a realist, you ought to have nothing to worry about, no values to defend, nothing you really care for is at stake here. Reality will continue to unfold in a real way, the way it tends to do... And that will be it.
Don't worry, Putin says he doesn't want Ukraine (PRX; Mar 29, 2014)
Others have other things to say, like in 2015:
'Nobody here is asking to leave Ukraine': Minorities see Russian meddling (Al Jazeera; May 4, 2015)
Realism is a tool for understanding international politics. What one does with that understanding is up to them.
To say a realist does not have any values to defend is false. A realist simply doesn't let their subjective values taint their attempt at objectively estimating and predicting actions and consequences on the world stage.
Quoting jorndoe
I don't presume to tell the Ukrainians what to do. It's their country being invaded.
Quoting jorndoe
I think United States meddling in the Maidan Revolution in February 2014 was a turning point in Russia's view on the question of Ukraine. I think a peaceful solution to the brewing conflict went off the table then and there.
Well then, I'm a realist alright. That's exactly what I try to do.
Explain to us again how your policy proposal of the US slipping Ukraine a couple of nukes to hit Moscow and St. Petersburg is:
A. Realistic.
and,
B. Example of you just applying not letting your "subjective values taint" your "attempt at objectively estimating and predicting actions and consequences on the world stage"?
Russia using nuclear weapons is completely realistic.
Without that being realistic (if Nukes didn't exist or Russia didn't have them) we'd already be in full blown World War III.
The reason the immense pro-Ukrainian social media fervour and anti-Russian condemnation and Churchillian speeches and all that, didn't result in "let's go boys!" is precisely because Russia has nuclear weapons and will use them under certain conditions.
Even the small gesture of a no-fly zone was taken off the table due to the threat of nuclear weapons.
Indeed, the whole reason weapons are being supplied to Ukraine in a sequence, the next weapon system only supplied when it is clear the previous weapon system didn't "beat Russia" is precisely to keep the situation stable.
What's stable? Russia winning easily enough that there's no reason to use nuclear weapons.
The weapons are just so the West can say "it tried" (and also supply the black market to destabilise the entire continents security).
In reality, Russia has nuclear weapons, and a lot of them, and the means to deliver them both tactically and strategically, and the actual moral imperative in the situation is to avoid nuclear war regardless of Russia's actions and regardless of how many Ukrainians will die due to non-"kinetic"-intervention.
The so-called moral imperative of "freedom" or whatever is merely a tool to whip people up into whatever frenzy people need to be in to support self-harming policies, right up to the line that's realistic to go in a confrontation with Russia without resulting in a nuclear war: as soon as we get near that line, suddenly the "adults" come out to say "we need to be responsible and not start a nuclear war, so we get everyone is angry at Russia and Ukrainian sovereignty or whatever, but we need to be realistic".
Quoting boethius
Really? That's the story and the whole story? (And the Ukrainians are but dumb automatons? And Putin + team?) :/ "Tunnel-vision" came to mind. Was going to start listing examples/quotes/whatever, but the thread is almost at page 300, plenty's been posted already, bit more than the ? quoted account.
Pretty much.
NATO could have sent in planes and sent in troops and do what logically follows from the moral imperative to protect Ukrainian sovereignty.
It didn't. Why?
Nuclear weapons.
And if you're not willing to send in troops to implement your vision of things yourself, because of nuclear weapons, what coheres with that decision is also to not send enough weapons, intelligence and training to win that way either, but the logical corollary to not sending troops and planes is to calibrate support to "no win", which is what we've seen. It's a dangerous game, as war is unpredictable, but it's the game NATO's playing.
Even Zelensky complains about it occasionally, when the blood weighs him down and he can't see through it anymore.
Quoting jorndoe
I have been a conscript and this is a good description, as unfortunate it as it is.
No, it was not realistic, not in the way you fantacized about, i.e. as a way to break Ukrainian resistance.
Quoting boethius
Nothing to see with your argument back then, when you mused about the possibility to break Ukrainian resistance with nukes.
That's the problem with so-called "realists". They never agree on what is realistic. There is no criterion for realism, so generally it just means that their personal fancy is realistic but not others'... :-)
I did make this claim. I claimed you can use tactical nukes to win battles, bust bunkers, the sort of things tactical nukes are designed to do.
@ssu already pointed that doesn't mean Ukrainians would give up, they could spread out and be less vulnerable to nuclear weapons.
Which I agreed with, but pointed out in return that without concentrating forces for a counter-offensive it's essentially impossible to conduct counter-offensives and basically no way to "win" in military terms against Russia.
This is not some fantasy, it's just reality that Russia has the tactical nuclear card it can play and this is what keeps NATO from escalating past a point that Russia may play that card.
It's also not just about WWIII and ICGM exchange, which Russia using tactical nukes in Ukraine is very unlikely to trigger.
The United States has a strategic interest in avoiding Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine which is euphemistically referred to as "breaking the nuclear taboo".
For, if tactical nuclear weapons were to become a common place occurrence in military confrontations, this would negate a large part of US military power.
It "makes sense" that people don't use nuclear weapons ... but a few months ago it "made sense" that "the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European land mass are over". Things can change, and the nuclear taboo is the first time in history that an available weapons system has not been used between culturally diverse adversaries (there have been weapons taboos, such as cross bows in Europe or fire arms in Japan, but only within the same culture, and sort of the exception that proves the rule, as even Europeans could use cross bows in crusades and Japanese taboo on fire arms didn't last--in short, the historical examples of weapons taboos are not actually source for comfort).
It's not speculation, the policy of not escalating "too much" is official NATO policy.
Even Biden just came out one day and shut down talk of a no-fly zone, essentially telling everyone in the media and Ukraine to grow up and get real ... never to be talked about again.
[sup]Feb 24 Russia invades Ukraine
Feb 25 Russia threatens ‘military and political consequences’ if Finland, Sweden try joining NATO
Feb 26 Finland, Sweden brush off Moscow's warning on joining NATO
Mar 12 Russian Official Warns Finland, Sweden Against Joining NATO
Mar 23 An anti-Russian 'disinformation operation' has singled out a Finnish university but it's unclear why
Apr 11 Ukraine War: Russia warns Sweden and Finland against Nato membership
Apr 14 Russia warns of nuclear deployment if Sweden, Finland join NATO
Apr 22 Russian media in Switzerland: A mix of propaganda and anti-regime critics
Apr 25 Sweden and Finland agree to submit Nato applications, say reports
May 06 Posters in Moscow accuse famous Swedes of backing Nazism
May 12 Russia threatens ‘retaliatory steps’ if Finland joins NATO
May 15 Finland and Sweden confirm intention to join Nato
May 16 Putin sees no threat from NATO expansion, warns against military build-up
Jun 30 Putin says Finland and Sweden can 'go ahead' and join NATO but warned the countries against hosting the alliance's 'military contingents and infrastructure'
Jul 05 Russia Reacts to Sweden and Finland Nearing NATO Membership
Jul 13 Moomin features in anti-Finland propaganda on Moscow streets[/sup]
(the articles themselves are usually fairly short, don't take a day to read, but have references, which can take a while to sift through)
Someone's been busy. Spreading garbage left and right.
Until or if Putin can threaten/force Sweden/Finland sufficiently, they'll be parts of NATO defense, unlike Ukraine. As it stands, I don't think Putin and team really have the extra resources. Rattling the nukes brought some additional attention onto them. (Might not be the best for them?) Russia threatens, invades Ukraine, threatens a bit, dismisses a bit, two other neighbors set to join NATO, ...
What are the trends? What to make of it?
I just explained exactly how it had to do with Nukes. I can explain it again if you want.
Already the threat of nuclear war precluded NATO boots on the ground and planes in the air (the common sense way to "defend freedom and democracy" a la WWII, which is the West's own preferred analogy). Of the arms and intelligence support Ukraine has gotten ... why only HIMARS now? ... and not literally the first day of the war?
The answer is because HIMARS can be introduced now maintaining a Russian win.
NATO is quite upfront that their goals is to bleed the Russians, not that Ukraine "win's", hence the concept of a "strategic defeat" in the context of a war that you win needed to be developed.
All of these policies and decisions have to do with Nuclear weapons. If the same war fervour developed in pre-nuclear Europe and USA there would already be a continental scale war rapidly escalating into into a global war. What puts the brakes on that process is the prospect of nuclear escalation.
Quoting jorndoe
Finland and Sweden joining NATO is not some sort of Ukrainian victory.
Honestly seems a bit insulting to Ukrainians that Finland and Sweden "get to join", having not been asking or wanting to for decades, while for a decade and a half it NATO membership was dangled in front of Ukraine but ... ah, ah, ah, one can look but one must never touch the NATO membership.
The most annoying part of that hypocrisy is that Western media frame the "expansion" of NATO Eastward as not-an-expansion as it was just countries joining out of their own volition, NATO agency and planning had nothing to do with it. But ... again ... why not Ukraine? They wanted to be let in too?
As for Finland and Sweden joining NATO, this has basically zero consequence on anything, at least in the short term. NATO's policy is clearly no direct engagement with Russia and Finland and Sweden joining NATO doesn't change that. It would matter if Russia was planning to invade Finland and Sweden, but there's zero evidence of that and, again, the most annoying hypocrisy that Russia not fully defeating Ukraine in 3 days demonstrates it's a incompetent and nothing-to-worry about force ... but we also need to be so worried as to run to NATO for protection?!
Finland and Sweden are a PR victory to sell Westerners the idea we "stood up to Putin", but there's no evidence that the Kremlin cares about Finland being in NATO or not. Of course, if there's a full scale war, it's strategically inconvenient, but if that's nuclear armageddon anyways ... it doesn't matter all that much.
Framed as a Russia vs NATO conflict ... Finland and Sweden joining NATO is terrible blow.
However, framed as a Russia vs Ukraine conflict--concerning spheres of influence in Russia speaking places (which Finland and Sweden don't have any of), and about oil and natural gas (which Finland and Sweden don't have any of) and black sea port and transcontinental pipelines (which Finland and Sweden don't have any of)--and there's no intention nor much stock put in the idea of a full scale war with NATO, then the whole Finland and Sweden joining NATO is at best meaningless and at worse just rubbing it in Ukrainian faces that they're not valuable enough to be in our little club (but we totally lead them on about for nearly 2 decades anyways just to see what would happen).
WWII is Putin's favorite analogy. He sees Nazis everywhere.
But this has nothing to do with the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. The reason Biden is being cautious is because he wants to avoid WWIII, i.e. a war between Russia and NATO.
I think even you can understand the difference between WWIII and the use of nukes against Ukraine. Those are two very different hypotheses.
That's the paranoid answer, but it's not the only one.
Quoting boethius
The funniest part of your hypocrisy is that you see NATO as not expansionist enough. You are asking: why don't they expand to Ukraine?, while in the same para you reproach them for their covert expansionism... :groan:
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/07/19/en-ukraine-la-logistique-militaire-russe-perturbee-par-des-missiles-americains-himars_6135351_3210.html
Nukes in Ukraine is the start of an escalation pathway to WWIII, also just makes the world generally more unstable and WWIII more likely people seeing nukes being used and "in play" so to speak, makes everyone else on a hair trigger.
But it's not just WWIII, breaking the nuclear taboo is bad for USA, as it reduces their conventional force relative power if people have and are willing to use nukes to strike carrier groups; and as nuclear proliferation continues, which the actual use of nuclear weapon would super charge, it increases the probability of state and non-state actors willing to use Nukes against the USA in "self defence" and simply not caring if USA nukes them back ... which USA may not actually do (nuke cities in retaliation for nuking a carrier group).
Quoting Olivier5
Paranoid how? If it was a moral imperative to supply Ukraine and defeat Russia, then you want to send in all the weapons systems day one, not supply only shoulder mounted missiles, hype the shit out of them, and then when that doesn't actually "defeat Russia" and Ukraine is insisting on heavier weapons, send in the excess soviet stuff lying around, hype the shit out of ex-soviet state bravery to dump all that in Ukraine (and get replacements from US), then send in a few M777's, more sophisticated anti-air systems, hype the shit out of those ... also what happened to the switch blades ... and then literally 5 months later when all those weapons failed to "win" supply 9 HIMARS in a show of "we care".
It's just the obvious truth. NATO could do way, way more than it has done even just in weapons supply (not to mention a no-fly zone or boots on the ground). It doesn't do more.
Well why? Why do just enough so Ukraine doesn't completely collapse but not enough to even credibly say you are trying to support Ukraine to the win?
Quoting Olivier5
Yes, a midnight deal to put Ukraine into NATO, dare the Russians to attack, would at least be coherent with the view that Ukrainian sovereignty is a moral imperative, and I would have respected such a move.
Maybe I'd be dead in a nuclear fire, but I'd be burning with a minimum respect for the people who triggered WWIII. They said they cared about Ukrainian sovereignty and they fucking followed through.
Now, pointing out I'd respect such a move more than dangling NATO in front of Ukraine, giving them a false sense of security, leading directly to this disastrous war, doesn't mean I think that was the best choice.
However, had NATO (or even just the US and UK on their lonesome) put Ukraine under their nuclear umbrella before the war, obviously it would have ben a ballsy move I could respect, in the sort of insane ballsy cowboy, staring down them mine shaft boys sort of way. And maybe it would have worked, that Russia would have backed off, or then some diplomatic resolution from a hard negotiating position, but giving Russia Nord Stream 2, a bunch of other concessions to accept Ukraine in NATO.
Would have maybe avoided the war, avoided the food crisis, avoided the energy crisis.
Of course, American's don't have the fucking balls, nor give a shit about Ukrainians at the end of the day.
What's left?
Pawns.
Pawns in the rain.
... All those moments ...
!! In my new book !!!
You're bat shit crazy.
I'll explain it again (I don't expect for your benefit, but perhaps others).
Consider these positions:
1. Ukraine has a right to join NATO and NATO was right to invite Ukraine to join, extend a hand as friends do.
2. Ukraine joining NATO would obviously have significant risk of WWIII and thus it is right that NATO never let Ukraine actually join over nearly 2 decades of talking about it.
The simultaneous praise of NATO defending Ukrainian sovereignty to join NATO as well as the "level headed" evaluation that Ukraine must never join NATO to avoid risk WWIII, are simply incompatible positions.
The only logic where these position make sense is if the goal is to bait the Ukrainians into a war with Russia by giving them a false sense of security and that their elites, and large part of their population, can simply ignore diplomacy with Russia and more-or-less just flip them off, as "NATO's got their back".
However, had NATO actually followed through on it's word (or simply US and UK in a separate nuclear umbrella alliance), actually cohered with point 1 above, then it would be a bold move but war would very unlikely and other things could be offered to Russia to compensate Ukraine in NATO. For, Russia doesn't want WWIII either (if they did ... we'd already be dead).
So, the crisis would have been extremely intense, but likely less actual risk of WWIII than the current situation, and no actual war in Ukraine, no food and energy crisis.
Now, if Ukraine joining NATO would potentially cause WWIII and "everybody knows that" so Finland Sweden can join a weak after changing their minds about it, but Ukraine: No Ukraine, No, Bad Ukraine, No NATO for you!
Then why state Ukraine will eventually join NATO multiple times, start NATO "partnership" and military training and collaboration, as official NATO policy ... without ever the intention for Ukraine to actually join NATO.
If the position is "Ukraine can't join NATO, everybody knows that!" what was the purpose of NATO playing footsie with Ukraine for nearly 2 decades?
More importantly, this half-asked support for Ukraine is more likely to lead to WWIII than simply a midnight deal (even in the days before the war) of US placing Ukraine in a defensive pact.
The current trajectory profoundly destabilises the entire global political system.
The consequences are completely unpredictable, not just the war in Ukraine and its regional implications, but the consequences of the added food and fuel crisis during an inflation crisis and negative consequences of Covid policies (which, whether you evaluate them as "justified" in themselves, the price is a seriously weakened political and economic system globally, in which the amplification by the current war must be taken into account in the risk-benefit analysis--and, regardless of the analysis, recovering from the pandemic is not "the best time" for the sort of war in Ukraine).
This sort of chain of overlaying crisis is what collapses systems.
Resources (both mental and physical) are only available to deal with a limited amount of crisis at a time. Multiple crisis at some point overwhelms a system's ability to interpret what is happening in a remotely accurate way, and no further effective decisions can be made even if suddenly elites genuinely want to "fix things" (which is also not a given).
And all this is information known to NATO planners and decision makers.
Bleeding out the Russians and trying to collapse the Russian economy, obviously has certain consequences: war of sanctions (ah, sorry it's "weaponising exports" and not tit-for-tat sanctions when Russia does it), obstructing food exports that obviously comes with a protracted war (during a global drought!?!), advanced weapons flooding into the black market, all of which destabilises profoundly the whole global system.
A profound destabilisation that makes WWIII certainly more likely than not-dumping-weapons-in-Ukraine and supplying intelligence, and, I would argue, more likely than had US done a midnight deal to "#stand with Ukraine" and "#believe Ukraine". Had US sent boots on the ground and "stood up to Putin" a war would be less likely, diplomatic solution more likely (such as giving Russia Nord Stream 2, other concessions needed to avoid a war). Of course, you can say that's not a good idea as there's still a chance of WWIII in such a tense standoff ... ok, but then in that logic the current policy is no more defendable and arguably increases likelihood of WWIII even more.
Though, I don't think the idea of a "midnight deal" with Ukraine would have been very realistic. Ukraine is one of Russia's primary foreign policy interests - the country and its institutions are likely soaked with Russian intelligence operatives.
Had the United States gone flirting with Ukraine in such a way, it would have likely caused Russia to attack sooner in an attempt to pre-empt it, just like it did now.
Furthermore, NATO is at least on paper a defensive alliance. While the United States is by far the most dominant partner in the alliance, such a move would greatly damage NATO's legitimacy even to its own members.
For the United States and Ukraine to enter into a pact bilaterally I think is equally unlikely, not to mention not very convincing.
For one, such a pact would essentially tie the fate of America to the fate of Ukraine. That's a lot of power and leverage to give to a country that the United States is obviously not prepared to wage large-scale/nuclear war for.
Second, Ukraine is on Russia's doorstep, whereas 9,000 kilometers and an ocean seperate Ukraine and the United States. In the unlikely event that the United States would commit to defending Ukraine with conventional means, by the time it arrives the battle would have been over. The Baltic States suffer from the same strategic problem.
And where would the US land its troops? If NATO is not involved, Europe is not a likely possibility without dragging it into the war. Southern Ukraine would likely fall in days, not to mention landing troops under the Russian missile umbrella seems unappetizing.
In other words, in the face of permanently losing control over Ukraine, Russia would likely not take such guarantees from the United States seriously and invade anyway, calling the United States' bluff.
...
Quoting Olivier5
...
You write your own material, it's brilliant.
Ukraine war news from February 25: Kyiv suburbs breached, Russian forces face resistance, Zelensky warns Russia will ‘storm’ capital (Feb 25, 2022)
Via Reuters:
Russia declares expanded war goals beyond Ukraine's Donbas (Jul 20, 2022)
Via The Guardian:
Quoting Vladimir Putin (Jul 8, 2022)
Quoting Dmitry Peskov (Jul 8, 2022)
Quoting Sergei Lavrov (Jul 8, 2022)
Lavrov walks out of G20 talks after denying Russia is causing food crisis (Jul 8, 2022)
[sup]Russian foreign minister accuses the west of frenzied criticism over his country’s invasion of Ukraine[/sup]
The Ukrainians still want the invaders to leave. Ukraine has supporters that Russia doesn't. What Putin and Peskov nonchalantly call "the battlefield" is Ukraine. Putin's team went theatrical.
Just saw an interview with a Danish reporter in Odessa (Jul 20, 2022):
Whether exaggerated or not, Pesky's (bombastic) statement has truth to it: Russia has an inherent upper hand here due to amount of resources, location, size, and Russia isn't being invaded, don't recall anyone having threatened to do so here.
The reporter had asked a number of Ukrainians what they thought of statements like those quoted, and they all just shrugged at them, responding that nothing coming out of those people can be trusted.
"special operation" = (attempted) land-grab
How is this even relevant? A bunch of nobodies telling us politicians can't be trusted? I'm shocked. Now go back to those quotes and explain why they aren't true instead of dismissing it as theatrics. And if you can't manage that consider what the implications are if they are true. Nothing in your post is interesting politically or philosophically without a bit of legwork - I don't think anybody here needs a biased news aggregator.
Yeah
[sup](Besides, those magnificent Ukrainian fields, those militarily and economically advantageous Black Sea shores, in "the right hands", connecting the Moldovian "resistance" with Father Kremlin, ... Just divert attention, shut down other voices at home, and roll the dice.)[/sup]
Lose sight of ...
... and you lose sight of the basics. And that's that. You don't get to invade, bomb, try to take over, and think no one will notice.
By the way, those "nobodys" (a country of "dumb automatons" apparently (racism aside)) confirm what's been argued in the thread already. Not new or anything.
This stuff isn't floating in a vacuum. Coming up on 300 pages. :o
Are you seriously suggesting that it's a mysterious concept to you that newspapers can give a biased impression of events without actually lying?
I can't believe you're so naive as to think that a selection of true and real happenings accurately represent the entirety of what's going on?
So perhaps dispense with the faux surprise that someone would call you out on it.
Obviously not. I develop the possibility to simply underline that the proposed moral imperatives to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, Ukraines's "right to join NATO", and defending freedom and so on, are obviously not the guiding principles of NATO or US foreign policy vis-a-vis Ukraine.
They say these things, but they are obviously not true.
Quoting Tzeentch
Although I agree with these statements, I would disagree that somehow Russia would have thwarted Ukraine joining NATO (in nearly 2 decades of talking about it). If Russia had that power, the 2014 coup would not have happened, and if it did anyway, Russia would have reversed it.
Ukraine even put in their constitution the aspiration to join NATO, and Zelensky tells the story of going to NATO and asking "are we there yet" a bunch of times.
Quoting Tzeentch
Ukraine joining NATO would have just been for Ukraine's defence. Obviously it is provocative to Russia and could trigger a war ... but a defensive war from NATO's point of view. NATO apologists even today argue that expanding East, including the "partnership" with Ukraine is all purely defensive and therefore not aggressive, missiles in East Europe are to defend against Iran etc. and therefore NATO is in no way responsible for the Ukrainian war and did not "provoke" Russia.
Again, just begs the question that if it was so obvious to everyone that Ukraine will never join NATO, why does NATO state Ukraine will join NATO and build military partnership and so on, if there's no intention to every follow through?
Quoting Tzeentch
The point of mentioning the bilateral possibility is just to prebuttal the excuse that joining NATO would be a long process in which Ukraine would be invaded.
US has zero problem with unilateral actions that upset their allies when it wants; just throws some freedom fries at the detractors and calls them names.
And, the double standard, UK rushes over to Finland to offer bilateral security commitment of some form to cover the NATO "ascension" process.
The reason the bilateral option is the exact same analysis is because it's US policy to say Ukraine can join NATO and Ukrainian sovereignty is so important and so on, without doing what coheres to such statements.
Quoting Tzeentch
The current war is approaching half a year ... so I don't see how the US could not show up in this time frame.
However, the point of an defensive alliance pact with Ukraine and sending boots on the ground and planes into Ukrainian airspace to defend Ukraine, is because (before the war) it puts Russia in the position of attacking American troops directly in a war of aggression, which risks nuclear escalation.
In terms of conventional military terms.
Obviously, the US directly intervening would be a significant increase the force compared to just Ukraine, it would optimise in a whole bunch of ways the effectiveness of Ukrainian troops.
In terms of conventional military analysis, there are high risks on both sides.
One may argue that if Ukraine has been able to compete by itself and arms supplies, that Ukraine + US would easily win.
The problem with that argument would be that Russia has not fully mobilised, and is only committing enough troops and resources to win while trying to minimise political and economic risks.
However, if US were to send boots on the ground in Ukraine, full mobilisation would be a likely result. So, such a scenario is quite far from the current situation.
If diplomacy failed and Russia to conventionally attack in this scenario, taking land would not be a big priority in the first phase of the way.
The big stakes would be air power.
No one knows (not even the engineers and commanders and pilots) what the effectiveness of stealth planes would be in a full scale air war. If it's highly effective, Russian air power and air defence would be completely humiliated. If it's not highly effective, the US would be humiliated.
Likewise, no one knows how effective US air defence would be in a full scale war.
Russia would of course hesitate to invade, things would be insanely intense, and there would be an attempt at a diplomatic resolution.
In strategic terms, there's lot's to debate, however, the real reason it did not happen and was never even a credible possibility for everyone is:
1. USA has no genuine interest in Ukrainian sovereignty, defending freedom and all that (it's purely propaganda to sell the intervention part of the policy, supplying arms, and then the "duh, get real, we won't actually defend Ukrainian sovereignty we're just saying we care to bleed the Russians" position is explained to answer the question of why not do more).
2. USA has no genuine interest in a diplomatic resolution to have avoided or then resolve anytime since the start of the war.
3. USA does not have the diplomatic statespeopleship or sufficient cognitive level of governance processes to conduct a high stakes, skin in the game, standoff strategy and concurrent diplomacy required for a Cuban missile crisis style move (which saw the US directly embargoing Russian ships and a military standoff in the Atlantic, very close the WWIII, but a diplomatic resolution as neither the US nor the Russians actually want WWIII). You would need actual non-corrupt politicians that at least genuinely believe what they are saying, and are actually focused on governance rather than their stock portfolio, and aren't older than the life expectancy of the country they are governing, for such strategic moves to even be contemplated seriously to begin with.
The point of developing the this scenario is to simply point out that there were options available if Ukrainian sovereignty and Ukrainian lives and drawing the line on Russian expansionism, was actually a priority.
It's "not realistic" for Ukraine to "actually" be defended by its "friends" is an argument that attempts to cover for the fact Ukraine is not a priority, Ukrainian lives don't matter, and "stopping Russia" is insofar as Ukrainians are dying to slow Russia down and not a serious undertaking.
However, the idea it's not realistic simply begs the question of why NATO stated Ukraine would eventually join in the first place.
Had NATO and Ukraine never been jerking each other off in an alleyway, and then suddenly there's unprovoked "Russian aggression" then the policy of "bad Russia, naughty Russia, we don't expand empires in the 21st century!" followed up with "helping Ukrainians defend themselves" and sanctions, would make coherent sense. NATO had been hands off Ukraine, and such respect for Russia was met with an illegal invasion. Since US and NATO policy is to not provoke Russia in Ukraine as it's totally unrealistic US and/or NATO would ever put actual skin in the game in a Russia-Ukraine conflict, then, ok, the policy line of just supplying arms and giving Ukrainians the "means to defend themselves" could make some sense.
And, that's become more-or-less the discourse now, rebranding NATO expansion Eastward as "just defensive" and "nothing to do with US imperialism", and the NATO-Ukrainian collaboration was not a provocation as everyone "knows it's not realistic for NATO to ever actually care about Ukrainians", and so on.
But it is simply in contradiction to the facts, and requires memory holing things that happened literally months ago, such as "Ukraine's right to join NATO" and "Ukraine's sovereignty over it's territory, even over regions that objectively do indeed want to separate" and "Ukraine's right to self-determination" (just not it's individual components) was the "big" meme going around justifying dumping arms in Ukraine, and justifying Ukraine rejecting all proposals by Russia, such as recognition of Crimea, Dombas independence, neutrality (NO! Right to join NATO!!!).
Of course, the "right to join NATO" without it being realistic to ever be able to join NATO (but by golly come on in Sweden and Finland, we have a door open policy!), is fucking dumb and tens of thousands of lives later, and no feasible way for Ukraine to take back all it's territory by force, much less Crimea, and the diplomatic resolutions available at the start of the war seem pretty attractive and the "right to join NATO" ... but only for Finland and Sweden seems very much cynical hypocrisy using Ukrainians as pawns, so, memory whole.
But those things happened. Those things actually happened.
Indeed, trends, moves and shakes, ongoing developments, extending what's happened already, directions, give an impression, forms an overview, from Putin bullshitting the gullible to the Ukrainian "nobody" on the street shrugging and babbling (actually present on the ground).
Wait, yes, let me just repeat...
Come to think on it, I'd have liked further comments on...
Quoting Streetlight
Unfortunately, Streetlight is out, and it's a while back. :meh:
Well I thought probably not, but here you are popping up at random to remind people what we knew by page 10. That Russia are invading Ukraine, that the Russian line is this is a special operation with specific, justified strategic goals, and that Ukraine and it's Western backers think it's a land grab.
What exactly do you think your latest round of propaganda brings that's new?
Realistic?
[sup] 1. full Ukraine sovereignty and neutrality
2. Ukraine to give up Crimea
3. Russia to withdraw except for Donbas, where new (temporary) borders will be drawn
4. Donbas to vote on independence, equal rights to all, no discrimination
5. Russia to OK Ukraine joining the EU as the case may be
6. no NATO/Ukraine relations
7. small Ukraine military only
8. small Ukraine weaponry only
9. everyone caught up in the war to be returned home (Geneva Convention)
10. no reparations demands, no international war crimes tribunals
11. US and EU to help rebuild Ukraine
12. diplomatic relations among Russia, Ukraine, NATO members to be in place
13. sanctions against Russia to end
14. no more NATO members along Russia's borders
15. reduce military presence and nuclear weaponry altogether
(I'll assume that some sort of Black Sea agreement + passage + cleanup would be part of it)[/sup]
Either way, why not take it to the negotiation table?
[tweet]https://twitter.com/leonidvolkov/status/1548697349676998656[/tweet]
Ignoring the usual political slant, I see a couple of worthwhile points. By the way, the reduction-to-chess-game misses the killings and bombing.
You mean take 15 points of concession to the table?
As opposed to only 3 of those points which were requested by the Russians back in December as a solution to the Ukraine crisis which would avoid war? Refused by the US.
As opposed to only five of those concessions requested by The Russians just three weeks into the war? Refused by the US.
As opposed to the now 15 point plan proposed way back in March to which the US response was to talk about war crimes and chemical weapons, the French response was to claim Russia were lying...
---
The points you're now pretending to be surprised about have been live issues since 2014. It is resoundingly the US and NATO who have refused to negotiate on any of them. Hence the war. The war that's making one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the US extremely rich. The war that's positioning the US to better fend off the threat from China...but I'm sure that's just coincidence. Maybe Russia didn't speak loudly enough earlier, I'm sure that's it. Maybe the US were distracted by a noise outside, or perhaps they had their headphones in... all much more sensible explanations than that the world's most powerful nation, known for manipulating events in its favour, is manipulating events in its favour.
You got that word right.
Did you post a link to an article after the first line? I can't find any.
I found it here too: https://unrollthread.com/t/1548697349676998656/ (more practical if one wants to save it)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/20/russia-ukraine-war-odesa-black-sea/
The bitter truth may simple be that Russia can't lose. But it must not win either.
, ignoring the usual unpleasantries and guesswork as to my mental state, the proposal items largely aren't new, and the article is from last month (Jun). Some of the items probably can't be taken off. Negotiations take (willingness) to compromise, at least to talk about it. Putin wants as much of Ukraine as he can get away with, Zelenskyy wants the Russian forces to leave, then whatever details.
, yeah, there are trends and reasons that Putin + team aren't looking for peace. Heck, the invasion was kicked off with an attack on the capital (among other moves).
No end in sight, and as long as Putin + team aren't interested, the hostilities will keep on going.
[quote=paraphrasing Volkov]Putin sends in the cannon fodder. If they're shot at, then bombs away. Repeat. Don't forget a few extra bombs for good measure.[/quote]
Airstrikes kill more Ukrainians despite grain export deal (AP News; Jul 22, 2022)
Missile strikes hit key Ukrainian port day after grain deal (Euronews; Jul 23, 2022)
EDIT: added Euronews article
And you know this how?
Because he once made a speech in which he talked about them being 'one people'. So did Nelson Mandela.
Quoting jorndoe
Which are? Compared to which actions of the US or Ukraine thst indicate they're looking for peace?
Give us a quick rundown of the moves so that we can all see what you see.
Replace "know" with: as consistent with evidence as those other hypotheses.
Actions over time, reports, statements (keeping bullshitting in mind), ..., a multipronged attempt to gain an overview, that includes NATO, Nazis, whatever, but lots more than just that, ...
(OK, I did a repeat/copy/paste :smile:)
So nothing then. Got it.
How did I get embroiled in this conversation? I've created three posts in all, one of which is a simple inquiry over the removal of my first post. Lol
Oh they can lose alright. Just watch...
It's not a serious proposal, just a Russian wet dream, including as it does that the baltic states ought to get out of NATO. Why would they ever do that?
A lot of the myths debunked in this video I never even heard any contradictory opinion about, and I've studied WWII a lot (far less than a historian of WWII, but more than the average person).
I realise this will come as a surprise to someone who think civilian casualties are just like extras in a film, but some people actually care about peace and are willing to take pragmatic steps to maintain it.
Such as not being part of a military alliance your massive, very militaristic neighbour considers a threat.
One could argue that Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are more secure inside NATO than outside of it. That'd be why they joined in the first place, no? If you care so much for their lives, don't throw them under the bus.
Go on then.
This is a simple argument, based on the notion that Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians are rational people. You should have been able to understand it.
That's not the issue you're even discussing. Obviously the people joining likely felt safer to join and that's why they therefore joined (the alternative being bribery).
However, the baltic states are small, do not occupy so critical strategic locations (such as compared to Georgia) and have few ethnic Russians (mainly due to them having been concentrated in Kaliningrad), but mainly they are just small and not a big strategic threat. Russia never expressed that the Baltics in NATO was a major security risk that they would need to react to (only forward missile bases, that for a while was respected, and even, at least nominally, there are no forward offensive missile bases, just defence against Iran, supposedly), made any threats about invading the Baltics if they joined NATO, and did not invade.
However, in the case of Georgia and Ukraine it was made very clear by the Russians that they would view joining NATO as an intolerable security threat, that they would do something to prevent it happening, and in both cases kept to their word on that.
Of course, you can argue that the best thing for Ukrainians, even considering Russia threats and clear intention to carry them through (especially after doing exactly that in Georgia), would still be join NATO and have NATO come and defend Ukrainian borders and extend the nuclear umbrella the eastern border and tip of Crimea.
Maybe true.
The problem is that NATO didn't let Ukraine join.
Say I want the bank to give me 10 billion Euros.
The problem is the bank doesn't give it to me, not my desire to have the 10 billion which can remain constant nor the arguments I can make that getting the 10 billion would be good for me, and my simply restating my desire for 10 billion Euros, and the reasons getting that 10 billion Euros would be good for me, is not an effective strategy to deal with the problem. Effective strategy would be realising despite my desire for 10 billion Euros of the banks money, the banks power to give it to me if it wanted, and my justifications of why such a thing happening would be good for me, that the bank is very unlikely to give me 10 billion Euros just because I ask for it and think I should have it, and to come up with an entirely different life plan.
Now, no one disputes Ukraine wanted to be in NATO and that NATO had the power to let Ukraine join (even now it could fly over some papers and have Ukraine in Nato tomorrow), and no one disputes that Ukraine joining NATO would be good for Ukraine.
The problem is NATO didn't think that would be good for NATO (otherwise it would have done it years ago).
NATO is the friend you don't want to have: not by your side when you need them, offering mainly moral support that is (over time) demoralising, and offering indirect no-skin-in-the-game material support insofar as you serve their purposes (of course, time will tell if as much talk, money, and energy will be spent by the West rebuilding Ukraine).
I'm afraid it is the issue we are discussing. Read the thread.
And, after HIMARS have both made a "decisive" difference (like the shoulder mounted rockets, drones, artillery, body armour, air defence, and all the rest before) ... but has also not produced victory and anything resembling winning important battles.
Literally a few days after HIMARS was announced as basically the greatest success that has occurred in the history of warfare ... F16's ... right on cue.
Progressive build up of Ukrainian NATO weaponry in the battlefield, resulting in progressive attrition of Russian fire power, as the HIMARS are achieving right now. As more HIMARS and precise long range artillery such as the French Caesar or the German PzH 2000 make it to Ukraine, as they certainly will, the Russian front will break at some point.
No where does @Isaac claim:
Quoting Olivier5
You were responding to:
Quoting Isaac
Which has nothing at all to do about anyone's feelings.
@Isaac's satement here is in no way contradicted nor has any problem accommodating people's feelings. Whether the Baltic state's feel safer or not, has no direct bearing on whether they are actually safer.
For example, NATO eastward expansion (which Baltic states have participated in) is a big, if not "the" big reason for the current war, which plenty of experts predicted would happen (including the US's own cold-war top analysts's and policy makers), and the current war is a major threat to Baltic security. Things can be argued both ways ... but people can feel safe independent of whatever the facts are.
And again, no one here is disputing that Ukraine (as defined as a majority or just the ruling elite) would "feel safer" in NATO. Feelings don't matter in this context. See my bank example above.
If Russia feels threatened by NATO expansion (it doesn't matter if they are justified), NATO expansion is the culprit. If Eastern European countries feel threatened by Russia and therefore join NATO as deterrent against direct aggression (it doesn't matter if they are justified), NATO expansion is still the culprit. Why is that always NATO expansion is the culprit that can not be excused/justified based on perception/reality analysis of moral or geopolitical reasons?
I understood this to mean the removal of NATO membership for those NATO members already bordering Russia, i e. the Baltic States.
( It could also mean something else I guess: no ADDITIONAL NATO members, but those Russia neighbours already part of the alliance can remain in it )
So I wondered why the Baltic States should get out of NATO:
Quoting Olivier5
That's when Isaac chipped in with:
Quoting Isaac
So he was clearly talking about the Baltic States walking out of NATO to appease Moscow.
Again, the basic issue: Eastern European countries do not necessarily have the option to "feel threatened by Russia and therefore join NATO". Some do and some (such as Ukraine) don't, since NATO doesn't let them in ... they are unable to simply "therefore join NATO".
Of the countries that were allowed to join by the grace of NATO, it can of course be debated whether it actually increases security or not. True, NATO is a powerful ally, but if joining NATO destabilises your entire region, your security maybe severely undermined even sans-WWIII (and increasing the odds of WWIII isn't exactly "good" for security).
Quoting neomac
Again, if the argument is that Ukraine feels threatened by Russia and therefore wants to join NATO since 2008 ... I see zero problems with such a argument.
The problem is NATO didn't let Ukraine join.
If your point is that hypothetically Ukraine would have liked to join NATO, and would like to still, and hypothetically this would be good for Ukraine, I don't have a problem with such assertions. Sure hypothetically it may have triggered WWIII or then hypothetically it would have avoided the war and been great for Ukraine.
These hypotheticals did not happen though. NATO is definitely the culprit in pretending the "might" do it, which is purely provocative and without actually doing it provides essentially zero additional security to Ukraine.
Well, that seems of the two options you thought of, the wrong one.
As you point out yourself it could also mean no additional members, which makes far more sense for someone to propose, especially as the current members that border Russia (excluding Kaliningrad).
Removing existing members from NATO is obviously far more extreme, impractical, and unrealistic, and so maybe give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume a less extreme interpretation unless it is clearly clarified that indeed they are meaning the extreme interpretation.
Quoting Olivier5
This is not at all clear.
Almost difficult to argue at all, since first you would need to argue that @Isaac has the same understanding of "no more" as you did (which is far from obvious) and also by "some people are willing to take pragmatic steps for peace" he is endorsing this extreme "kick existing NATO members out of NATO", rather than just an expression of principle ... which is in direct contradiction to your interpretations of "no more" as it's clearly in no way pragmatic to kick existing NATO members states out of NATO.
Hey, it's not my fault if they can't even write their propaganda in legible English.
Quoting boethius
Be serious now. He was responding to my post where I clearly wondered about why the Baltic States should exit NATO.
Sure, but responding to a post does not somehow imply you take the opposite position to everything in said post.
@Isaac's fundamental position (same as mine) is the war should be ended by a negotiated peace by the parties involved, which would obviously mean a compromise.
Of course, what compromise is achievable and reasonable compared to further war can be debated.
Likewise, if the Baltic states increased their real security by joining NATO can be debated, and likewise just as it is legitimate to discuss a country trying to join NATO (and discuss if NATO would let them join), it is equally legitimate to discuss if existing NATO be good or bad for a country. Alliances and international organisations are not one way streets, as Brexit demonstrates.
Now, I would argue that the Baltic states would not, for now at least, even consider existing NATO and there would be no practical way to kick them out of NATO even if other members wanted them gone, which seems unlikely as well, and I'd also argue Brexit was a mistake. Nevertheless, such changes to international relations are hardly unthinkable and happen regularly throughout history, and certainly legitimate to debate.
However, what I was responding to was the idea that Baltic states feelings of security has any relevance in any of these topics. Obviously they most likely did feel more secure after joining. Certainly Ukraine would have felt more secure if they were let in.
You wondered why anyone would follow or agree to the recommendations of a peace plan. The answer is obvious. To secure peace.
If you personally think the recommended actions will not secure peace then you need to a) provide an argument as to why, and b) dial down this stupid faux incredulity that other people might have a different opinion to you.
If your best argument for (a) is "the people of that country wanted it and they're not going to be wrong are they", then we can leave it there. You're clearly not interested in any serious discussion, that's been made clear, job done.
If your counter argument is that leaving a defensive alliance is much more significant response than not joining one, then perhaps it might have made sense to actually write that in response rather than this obsequious garbage about the government automatically being right because they're the government.
In the latter case, as @boethius has said...
Quoting boethius
But I don't really expect a serious debate about that from you, my main point was to counter this absurd notion that we'd be surprised people might be willing to compromise to achieve peace. We're not all like you (think god).
Matter to whom, for what?
If we're talking about what those countries ought to have done, then whether they are right about their safety matters, does it not?
So how does whether Russia are right about their fears matter to the countries we're talking about? If they invade because of false fears, how is that any different to invading because of justified fears? Do they use lighter bombs in the latter case?
That's what I understood from your statement, a general point about pragmatism and compromise. We're in agreement there.
Quoting Isaac
I have no serious peace proposals at the moment as I honestly do not see either side compromising right now, which is what happens when a war goes beyond the initial stages and both sides have sacrificed too much to compromise; very predictable situation.
Before, and at the start of the war, I argued for the compromise of neutral Ukraine, independence of the Donbas, recognition of Crimea and restarting the water there. Of course, this was what Russia was proposing so many said it would be "giving into" Russia, but these points were basically already negotiated in the Minsk agreements, so hardly unreasonable.
Of course, as you point out, more Russia pays a price in blood and insofar as there's no fear of failure, demands only go up as they can be achieved by military means.
So, for the moment the only analysis I see has relevant is refuting statements I disagree with as well as explaining the situation: NATO is bleeding the Russians and calibrating the arms supply to do that without actually risking a Russian loss: hence one weapon system at a time, to observe it's effect and seeing what supply level doesn't really change anything, before moving on to the next weapons system.
If you actually wanted Ukraine to win, you'd supply all the weapon systems as early as possible ... not after critical defeats in Kherson, Mariupol and Donbas.
However, the grain deal is maybe a sign both sides are tiring out and want to reach a deal.
NATO membership has already been ruled out, and the critical terms would essentially be over land.
It's possible Russia makes an offer Ukraine accepts, but seems to me unlikely. So a peace deal would be essentially on Russia's terms and more Ukrainian capitulation. If Ukraine can simply no longer sustain the fight, this is possible. But we really have no way of really knowing the military situation on the ground.
Of course, Europe could go and make serious offers on sanctions, Nord Stream 2, resolution of all legal issues related to the war, and so on to compensate Russia going back to the three initial points.
Maybe this is possible.
There's plenty of serious things to debate in terms of acceptable compromise on all sides.
However, if fighting the Russians is a moral imperative, then compromise would be immoral, so I see this topic as entirely relevant to the matter at hand, as that's how it has been framed in the West: Russia is evil, Putin is Hitler, Zelensky is Churchill, democracy as such is at stake, etc.
I don't see how we get to compromise before wading through these issues, which @Olivier5 and company are representing.
Normally, it implies you respond to the post, not to something else.
I've just realised what a impression that last post gave, quoting you in the middle of my response to @Olivier5. I meant that I didn't expect any serious response from him, not you!
Having said that, your response was interesting, so not entirely a failure.
Responding to a post in no way means taking every possible opposing position.
As @Isaac has himself clarified, regardless of your interpretation of the author cited, and regardless of what the author is really meaning, @Isaac agrees with the authors goal of exploring and trying to reach a compromise (which his very much an ideation process, until something is found that "works").
Which is the only inference that is warranted from @Isaac's statement, that he approves of people trying to find peace through pragmatic compromise rather than more bloodshed.
Yes, exactly, but the 'if' question is as yet unanswered.
We have two competing theories. Are people morally outraged and so only able to contemplate a military defeat of Russia, even after a long drawn out war...
or...
Do those in control of the rhetoric want a long drawn out war and so find it convenient to stoke the narrative of a moral imperative to punish Russia.
I'm inclined toward the latter, simply because that group has both the power and the incentive to do this so, holding the view that they could, but just aren't, seems implausible.
Hence what's at stake might be more like how that power can be limited?
Ah ok, thanks for clarifying.
It did cross my mind as a possibility, but then it seemed fruitful anyways to contemplate this criticism as I have a deep respect for your point of view and it was an invitation for some soul searching.
It is valid rebuke that I haven't been talking about compromise lately, and maybe with the grain deal it's a good moment to refocus on that. That this deal was possible I think is grounds for at least hope peace can be achieved in the short term.
It's possible all parties are now in a "it has to stop somehow" attitude.
Especially with Johnson and Draghi resignations, and total collapse of Sri Lanka, the West maybe starting to enter "serious reality" mode.
Likewise, Russia certainly has all sorts of problems relating the war and sanctions, can certainly sell to its people military victory at this point in time, so there maybe strong desire for peace on that side as well.
So, perhaps the conditions are ripe, but I think what is clear is that "open source diplomacy" has been ended as an experiment, so the situation is difficult to analyse.
What cards each side has is easy to point out, but it's difficult to guess what sort of recipe might be accepted by all parties. However, if there's serious intention to find peace, it is certainly doable by the global diplomatic community, and I hope their voices are starting to be louder in the offices of power; even if only for raw self-serving career preservation at this point.
Yes, it was, in the end, but I apologise for the misdirection.
Quoting boethius
I think this is one of the oddities in considering modern war. All war is aimed at peace. All wars aim to have peace in which the borders (or political influence) have shifted. The aim is (was) never permanent war. So Russia should always be viewed as trying to gain a better bargaining position in the same power negotiations which preceded the war. As such, it would be insane not to be regularly 'testing the water' to see if they feel they've gained that position yet.
This position ought be unaffected by whether we're winning or not, since at any time the opposing side might feel they have their best case (either because they've gained the advantage they wanted, or because they fear their current advantage may deteriorate). It's like the concept of mean annual increment in forestry, one wants to fell one's crop, not at the maximum size, but at the point where further increase in size isn't worth the risk and cost of keeping the crop up.
So we have to ask, I think, why the US are so uninterested in negotiations. That is the interesting question, and one best answered by looking at what they have to gain from a long drawn out war.
Of equal, if not greater, interest to me are the methods they use to wield public opinion as s tool to this end. Hence the interest in the kinds of pro-US comment collected here.
So he misunderstood my post, because I have no objection to any of that.
Thank you lol. I intend not to. Seems a bit heated in here. Or cold. Whichever extremity constitutes a pun here.
No worries at all.
Quoting Isaac
Completely agreed. The parties that seemed, maybe still seem, to really want war, the longer the better, are the US, UK and the former Soviet NATO members.
... or, indeed, exactly as you say:Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Yes, in a matter of months US went from facing criticism for 2 decades of pointless war followed by letting "allies" fall off their planes hanging on in terror, to the "defenders of the free world".
Quoting Isaac
Yes, well said. As for the current situation, for me the litmus test of Ukrainian "winning" ability is Kherson. If Ukraine had any significant counter-offensive capability, it would push the Russians the the East bank of the Dnieper river.
Not only would this be a sure military embarrassment for Russia, but it would radically increase the defensive situation vis-a-vis Odessa (and everything other Westward direction Ukraine), freeing up manpower.
There is now talk of a Kherson offensive starting ... any day now. If it succeeds then legend of Russian exhaustion, extreme casualties, low moral, inferior equipment, would be finally proven true. If it fails then it would be clear that Ukraine has no counter offensive potential (F-16's would not fix anything).
Ideally, the current threat against Kherson is for diplomatic purposes that ultimately succeed.
[sup]Mar 31, 2022 Russia to stage independence referendum in Kherson region, says Ukraine
Apr 28, 2022 Occupied Ukrainian city fears sham Russian referendum plans
Jun 11, 2022 Russia Moving Forward With 'Referendum' Plans in Occupied Southern Ukraine, Says Kherson Mayor
Jun 29, 2022 Occupied Kherson Readying for Vote to Join Russia, Official Claims
Jul 21, 2022 In occupied south Ukraine, some fear a return to Soviet times under Russia[/sup]
Quoting Kirill Stremousov (reported May 13, 2022)
Quoting Kirill Stremousov (reported Jul 21, 2022)
In the rearview mirror, Putin (and team) handling votes and elections ain't exactly trustworthy.
Of course, the resemblance of democracy is supposed to render legitimacy — theatrics.
I'm guessing that's why Kyiv seems to focus on retaking the region, though they'd have to be careful, no atrocities, no surplus destruction, don't fuel Putin's propaganda machine, all that.
Captured nuclear plant doubles as launch pad for relentless Russian rocket attacks (Jul 22, 2022)
I suppose, as a strategy, this sort of works.
A camp by enriched uranium is risky to attack.
Would the occupiers threaten with (or otherwise perpetrate) a radioactive leak if their position was threatened? (Perhaps a bit like the Kuwaiti oil fires?)
Or at least that's the plan... It's hard to see how they are going to pull it off within the declared time frame. Russia controls just over half of the Donetsk region (which is claimed by one of the self-proclaimed republics), and its advance there has been glacial. And lately the Right-bank part of the Kherson region, including the city of Kherson itself, has been under pressure.
Actually, the Russian Economy Is Imploding (Jul 22, 2022) - archived
The myth of Putin as world energy czar is running out of gas (Jul 25, 2022)
[sup]Myth 1: Russia can redirect its gas exports and sell to Asia in lieu of Europe.
Myth 2: Since oil is more fungible than gas, Putin can just sell more to Asia.
Myth 3: Russia is making up for lost Western businesses and imports by replacing them with imports from Asia.
Myth 4: Russian domestic consumption and consumer health remain strong.
Myth 5: Global businesses have not really pulled out of Russia, and business, capital, and talent flight from Russia are overstated.
Myth 6: Putin is running a budget surplus thanks to high energy prices.
Myth 7: Putin has hundreds of billions of dollars in rainy day funds, so the Kremlin’s finances are unlikely to be strained anytime soon.
Myth 8: The ruble is the world’s strongest-performing currency this year.
Myth 9: The implementation of sanctions and business retreats are now largely done, and no more economic pressure is needed.[/sup]
[sup]Their language is somewhat loaded/slanted (suspect), perhaps a bit much for some readers. The article is argumentative. In line with their other reports. They've been involved with tracking organizations leaving and staying in Russia.[/sup]
Effects of sanctions matter, and the article says they're effective. I'd like to know if/how regular people throughout Russia are impacted; if they can't get a new designer jacket, oh well; if they're starving to death, ...
Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky
I understand why people hate all things Russian right now. But our literature did not put Putin in power or cause this war.
By Mikhail Shishkin
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/russian-literature-books-ukraine-war-dostoyevsky-nabokov/670928/?utm_source=feed
[...] The world is surprised at the quiescence of the Russian people, the lack of opposition to the war. But this has been their survival strategy for generations—as the last line of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov puts it, “The people are silent.” Silence is safer. Whoever is in power is always right, and you have to obey whatever order comes. And whoever disagrees ends up in jail or worse. And as Russians know only too well from bitter historical experience, never say, This is the worst. As the popular adage has it: “One should not wish death on a bad czar.” For who knows what the next one will be like?
Only words can undo this silence. This is why poetry was always more than poetry in Russia. Former Soviet prisoners are said to have attested that Russian classics saved their lives in the labor camps when they retold the novels of Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky to other inmates. Russian literature could not prevent the Gulags, but it did help prisoners survive them. [...]
Russian literature owes the world another great novel. I sometimes imagine a young man who is now in a trench and has no idea that he is a writer, but who asks himself: “What am I doing here? Why has my government lied to me and betrayed me? Why should we kill and die here? Why are we, Russians, fascists and murderers?” [...]
You know it's a frozen conflict from there existing a Bureau of Reintegration... :wink:
Quoting Christopher
Sorry, I referred to the wrong person, Jamal already noticed.
And yes, quite well to stay away from a dumpster fire like this thread.
The Enemy Within (Jul 28, 2022)
Old modus operandi. Vague echoes in Transnistria and Donbas.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/29/zelenskyy-visits-port-as-ukraine-prepares-to-ship-out-grain
[...] The security concerns and complexities of the agreements have set off a slow, cautious start, with no grains having yet left Ukrainian ports. The sides are facing a ticking clock — the deal is only good for 120 days.
The goal over the next four months is to get some 20 million tonnes of grain out of three Ukrainian sea ports blocked since the February 24 invasion. That provides time for about four to five large bulk carriers per day [...]
Getting the grain out is also critical to farmers in Ukraine, who are running out of storage capacity amid a new harvest.
“We are ready,” Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure, Oleksandr Kubrakov, told reporters at the port of Odesa on Friday.
He said that 17 trapped vessels were already loaded with grain, and another was now being loaded.
He hoped the first vessels would start leaving port by the end of this week.
“After the signing of the grain initiative in Istanbul, the Ukrainian side has made all the necessary preparations for … the navigation of the Black Sea, to start exporting our grain products from our ports,” Kubrakov said.
But he said Ukraine is waiting on the UN to confirm the safe corridors that will be used by ships.
‘Logistical issues’
Martin Griffiths, the UN official who mediated the deals, cautioned that work was still being done to finalise the exact coordinates of the safest routes, saying this must be “absolutely nailed down”.
Lloyd’s List, a global publisher of shipping news, noted that while UN officials are pushing for the initial voyage this week to show progress in the deal, continued uncertainty on key details would likely prevent an immediate ramping-up of shipments.
“Until those logistical issues and detailed outlines of safeguarding procedures are disseminated, charters will not be agreed and insurers will not be underwriting shipments,” wrote Bridget Diakun and Richard Meade of Lloyd’s List.
They noted, however, that UN agencies, such as the World Food Programme, have already arranged to charter much of the grain for urgent humanitarian needs.
Shipping companies have not rushed in since the deal was signed a week ago because explosive mines are drifting in the waters, ship owners are assessing the risks and many still have questions over how the agreement will unfold.
Ukraine, Turkey and the UN are trying to show they are acting on the deal. Turkish defence minister Hulusi Akar told Al Jazeera on Thursday that “the deal has started in practice” and that the first ship leaving Ukraine with grain was expected to depart “very soon”.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed similar optimism in a news briefing, framing the deal as a significant step forward between the warring sides.
“This is not just a step being taken to lift the hurdles in front of the export of food. If implemented successfully, it will be a serious confidence-building measure for both sides,” he said.
The deal stipulated that Russia and Ukraine provide “maximum assurances” for ships that brave the journey to the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny.
Smaller Ukrainian pilot boats will guide the vessels through approved corridors. The entire operation will be overseen by a Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul staffed by officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations.
Once ships reach port, they will be loaded with grain before departing back to the Bosphorus Strait, where they will be boarded to inspect for weapons. There will likely be inspections for ships embarking to Ukraine, as well.
Yeah, and no one appears to be keen on reigniting it. Russia has its hands full with its present war, which it doesn't know how to end without losing face. It doesn't have a common border with Moldova. For an invasion it would need to establish a land corridor through southern Ukraine, which now appears to be a remote possibility.
Moldovan army is pretty much non-existent. They know that in the (unlikely) event of a full-scale conflict with Russia they would be crushed like a bug.
Transnistria is the least interested in upsetting the status quo. All these years they've been left alone, enjoying generous subsidies from Russia in the form of virtually free gas and a share of the Trans-Balkan pipeline. On the other side Transnistrians can travel freely to mainland Moldova (and from there visa-free to the EU), since most Transnistrians have Moldovan passports. While in theory, people there are staunchly pro-Russian, having been fed a steady diet of Russian TV, they like things to stay just as they are.
All this sabre-rattling is nothing more than a halfhearted diversionary maneuver from Russia, I think.
For the time being, yes.
But this unfortunately is likely to be a long war. Even if I hope I'm wrong here.
Quoting SophistiCat
Ask yourself, @SophistiCat, does Russia or anybody really listen to the Transnistrians when deciding on these matters?
In fact before February 24th for a long time things in the Donbas were rather similar to what you stated above from Transnistria: people could move back and forth to Ukraine and Ukraine even paid pensions to people in the Donbas People's Republics. I'm sure the people that actually supported Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics back in 2014 aren't so enthusiastic about how things are going now.
It's not a fair comparison: life in Donbas was pretty miserable even before the invasion. And among those remaining there, quite a few did want to be absorbed into Russia already, instead of remaining in limbo, as it were. Or else they didn't much care one way or another. And even now there are those on both sides of the front line who are convinced, despite everything they've had to go through, that Russia did the right thing (and should have done it much sooner).
But I take your point: of course Transnistrians will not have a say if Putin decides to "liberate" them next. But neither will they do anything to help. All that "remind[ing] of their plans to secede from Moldova and join Russia" is only because they believe that they are safe for now.
Yes. Although there was the Transnistrian war in 1990-1992, which was rather similar (as the war in Donbas 2014-2022).
The bigger player here that is and hopefully will stay inactive is of course Belarus. There are Belarussian fighters fighting in the lines of Ukraine, questionable support for the current leadership (after the massive demonstrations put down with violence) and basically no reason for Belarus to attack it's southern neighbor. Hence it's likely that the current situation will prevail with Belarus giving Russian forces a ground to operate, but won't join themselves the fighting.
Even the Ukrainians have observed this:
Otherwise if Belarus would be involved the clusterfuck would start to resemble the Russia Civil War.
Quoting TASS (May 9, 2022)
Quoting TASS (May 9, 2022)
Vacation-spot to-be for the rich and Russian oligarchs I guess, if he can find the funds? Looking around two/three months later, it seems accountability may be forgotten soon enough?
Are you talking about your own comments?
I don't see why people would be surprised that the subject of an ongoing war isn't in the framework of the usual academic decorum, hedged language, and polite patting on the back for everyone participating in an obscure, unimportant, and zero-stakes intellectual masterbation session.
I think it's entirely healthy posters like @Olivier5 are passionate about their case for war, as much as other posters are passionate about their case for peace.
If you want a dumpster fire, go to some place like https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/ and you'll see people huddling and warming themselves around their modern day book burning (aka. deleting and banning any dissenting opinion whatsoever).
A space where actual opposing views can meet and discuss and disagree is not a dumpster fire. It's called "debate". If people care about the subject, it's called: "people care".
Hopefully not. :roll:
But this thread is now going to be 300 pages and some have this fixation that the most important issue talked about should be the US tells something.
Quoting boethius
Usually they are like that... as people really don't get heated up about various armed groups fighting in a civil war in a country that they have problem finding on a map.
Well, as I'm now writing an answer to you from just a bit over 9 kilometers from the border of one participant in this war, yeah, for me it's more important than let's say the war in Ethiopia. Which itself is also interesting (and important) as peace might finally be found there.
What is the something that it tells?
Quoting ssu
Sure, many people don't care about any war, participated in discussing this one to jump on the social media virtue signalling band-waggon before hopping off.
I'm not sure if you're saying that discussion between the people disinterested would be higher quality? Or what?
As for the current state of the war, counter offensive against Kershon does not seem to be working.
I would guess that the second last batch of weapons was predicated on the promise of holding out in Dombas, and now the latest batch of weapons is predicated on a promise of counter offensive in Kershon.
If this counter-offensive fails, "allies" will continue to wind-down their arms shipments to Ukraine, continue to deescalate with Russia, and forget about Ukraine.
People and politicians will go back to same-old-same-old':
Quoting ssu
Indeed, the "usual".
Just from where the most participants are from (mainly from the Anglosphere). Which is quite natural as we use English.
Quoting boethius
Well, let's hope participating on a Philosophy forum isn't virtue signalling.
Quoting boethius
This is a real possibility, I agree.
It seems that already Russia has signaled that it will take a break. And likely Ukraine doesn't have the ability to muster a large counterattack. There is the possibility that the war does what it did after 2014-2015: become a stalemate. Or at least for the time being until Russia simply can train new batches of conscripts and add up the needed materiel.
On the economic "sanctions"-front, I think that Russia has played it's cards very well. It simply is just such a large supplier of natural resources that the World cannot simply disregard it. The logical way for the West to counter this would be to try a push the price of oil and gas down by increasing production, but that would go against what has been set as goal to curb climate change. German energy policy of having relied to Russian energy with closing down nuclear plants and now having to open coal plants show how clueless the West actually is here.
Ukraine is still just one issue among others and Putin knows that.
i don't think I have argued the case of war, i have just observed that the call for peace negotiations is part of the war. Posters whining here that there are no peace negociations are only repeating uncritically the propaganda of the Kremlin.
The "Transnistrian war" was hardly a war: the scale and the forces involved were tiny compared to Donbas. There were, I think, a few old Soviet tanks that were rolled out at one point to intimidate the Moldovan forces - and that proved to be enough. There wasn't much will or ability to fight on the Moldovan side.
Quoting ssu
Even from what little can be gathered inside Belarus, it is clear that people there are dead-set against their country entering this war - even those who take the pro-Russian position. Of course, if push comes to shove, no one will ask Belorussians what they want, just as no one asked the Russians. The difference is quiet opposition on one side and quiet acquiescence on the other side of the border. And, as you noted, Lukashenko is sitting on bayonets as it is; dragging his people into Russia's war against their will is the last thing he wants.
So far, Kremlin has been accommodating, but one wonders: how long will Putin tolerate this wily, self-willed and treacherous vassal? Will he at some point decide that it would be so much more convenient to have a loyal silovik in charge? Of course, taking over a personalistic, top-down security and patronage system from a man who has been at the helm even longer than Putin would not be easy and smooth. But does Putin realize this? His delusional ideas of how easily he would take over Ukraine do not instill confidence in his judgement.
On the other hand, what could Belarus bring to the table if it was forced to enter the war right now? Perhaps 20 thousand of poorly armed and unwilling conscripts. Would it be worth the trouble?
If Europe goes through with its divestment from Russian energy, then Russia's game doesn't look so good in the medium term. Oil and gas are not like gold: moving them takes a lot of specialized infrastructure that simply does not exist today and won't come into existence any time soon. And Asia's appetite for Russian energy isn't bottomless either: they'll take what they can if the discount is big enough, but they have other supplies as well.
Besides, energy isn't everything, and the rest of Russian economy looks pretty dismal. It will survive, but it needs more than mere survival in order to continue to support long and bloody wars of aggression.
Sure that's true.
Quoting ssu
I was referring to facebook, twitter et. al.
People who virtue signal here don't seem to stick around; they go back to fishing for likes elsewhere I'm afraid.
Quoting ssu
Yes we're in agreement there.
I'm sure we also agree that this would not be a morally acceptable outcome, same as abandoning allies in Afghanistan.
Quoting ssu
This is definitely one possibility, and definitely a Ukraine counter attack would be a big surprise to me.
However, Ukraine's ability to continue to defend is also highly uncertain. We simply don't know the relative force capabilities on each side at the moment. Damage to Russia's army only matters if there's not equal or greater damage to Ukraine's army.
Every example of damage against the Russians, or then various problems, generally is safe to assume is as bad or worse for the Ukrainians.
Quoting ssu
I definitely agree with your assessment here, and disagree with:
Quoting SophistiCat
Although true that Oil and gas take specialized infrastructure ...
Russia spent the last decade building some 24 nuclear ice breakers, LNG compression stations, and all the piping and port facilities necessary to export oil and gas directly out of the arctic (how it has been supplying China and India with oil, although the ice breakers will only be needed in winter).
This video is literally titled "Why Russia is building an Arctic Silk Road":
Quoting SophistiCat
If it's cheaper, they buy basically all of it. Middle-east then shifts to supplying Europe. Once oil is at sea it is very fungible and essentially dissolves into the global oil market. Barrels may trade multiple times while still in the ground, while in storage, while at sea, and the oil that gets delivered from a supplier is not necessarily even oil from that supplier. Insofar as Russia can trade oil to the BRICS, then it's just a game of musical chairs shifting oil around.
I'm not sure if Russia has the LNG capacity to export all its gas through all its non-EU pipelines and arctic LNG plants, but there's not some logical necessity to export at maximum capacity. Indeed, not only does increase gas prices easily make-up for decreased volume, but natural gas is only a fifth the revenue of oil.
Oil is easy to export in vast quantities as long as there's port access, which Russia has secured with the nuclear ice breakers (and also only economic due to the disappearance of multi-year ice in the arctic, leaving ice easy to break through).
As for other economic sectors of the Russian economy, their biggest "other" industry is arms and they are basically the only supplier available for non-NATO aligned countries, so they have a captured market.
Computer chips are definitely an inconvenience, likely some missiles have washing machine chips in them to get around sanctions ... or then maybe that was just the best and cheapest chip for the job. I doubt they actually scavenged them from actual washing machines.
However, I don't think computing is such a big deal simply because there's so many ways around sanctions, there's so many chips in the world and they're small (it's far from being some difficult to acquire thing such as in the cold war), and Russia can produce its own chips (not cutting edge but good enough for most industrial processes and military purposes).
Precise manufacturing can be sourced from China.
Certainly results in an ersatz economy with a lot of copies of Western equipments, but as long as it all still works, doesn't seem there's any critical failure points for the Russian economy writ large.
Supplying massive quantities of what people "need": energy, food, fertiliser, minerals, arms is not a weak economic position.
You've clearly argued that Ukrainians should fight, which is the case for war. Without Ukrainians fighting there is no war.
Of course, you can blame the Russians for starting it, but it takes two sides to have a war.
Quoting Olivier5
It is not the propaganda of the Kremlin, US, NATO and EU literally came out and said they will not negotiate; negotiation must be directly with Ukraine. You can say that's how it should be, but you can't also at the same time say lack of serious negotiation throughout the war is Kremlin propaganda.
You could claim Russia would anyways break any agreement, but you can't say there was a negotiation ... even though there wasn't because it was assumed Russia wouldn't abide by any agreement so there was no attempt to negotiate.
Furthermore, even in the absence of serious negotiations of the powers involved and have the leverage (the powers with the money and the weapons and dictating Ukrainian policy), Russia nevertheless made a public offer of: independent Donbas, recognising Crimea, neutral Ukraine, and if accepted all troops would withdraw from Ukrainian territory.
The main criticism is that Ukraine did not accept this public offer, which was clearly the minimum Russia would ever offer, the only alternative to accepting the offer would be to wage a war that was clearly un-winnable, and even if Ukraine could take back the whole of just the Donbas, not to mention Crimea, it would be at the cost of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands dead Ukrainians (which is not a reasonable cost to "keep" two ethnically Russian regions).
Now, if Ukraine accepted the offer and then Russia reneged and continued the war anyways, that would be a different scenario. But future crime does not exist; you cannot accuse someone of not abiding by an agreement that has not been made.
And this good-faith, bad-faith game is important, as Russia needs to maintain other international relations who are open to consider Russia's point of view and decide accordingly. If Russia can point out a public offer that was clearly the minimum it could ever make, and obviously more reasonable than more war, and Ukraine refused, this is extremely weighty in diplomatic relations with non-NATO countries.
It doesn't matter to Western media, they'll just ignore it or say it was bad faith future crime or whatever, but it does matter to non-Western countries and media, many who are also authoritarian regimes of one form or another and don't have any prima facie "Russia is evil" starting point.
Without support of non-NATO countries in maintaining trade relations, Russia would very possibly collapse, so these diplomatically relevant (but irrelevant to Western media) good-faith-bad-faith arguments are also important to understand the geo-political situation.
Russia and China really are creating an alternative global economic system to challenge American Empire. Not only is "who's more reasonable" a critical point (as you can't wage war with everyone so do actually have to go and convince people to deal with you at some point) in these international relations, but it's important to keep in mind that most of these non-Wester nations are authoritarian and default to empathy with Russia and not Western "values" (and also love pointing out hypocrisy in those as much as they possibly can).
Indeed, there's even examples within NATO.
Erdogan is far closer ideologically to Putin than to any Western leader.
Russia''s motivation and justifications to deal with a pesky neighbour Ukraine by force is very close to Turkey's (aka. Türkiye's) view of Syria, Kurds, everyone.
So, a lot of the non-Western states are ideologically far closer to Russia than the West and don't need much evidence to essentially side with Russia.
Nevertheless, if Russia was clearly in the wrong (their offer was accepted, and then they continued fighting) diplomatic relations would immediately change as all these other states don't actually want the war, it affects them in energy and food costs, so if Russia was continuing it in bad faith that would be quickly intolerable to them.
Russia's narrative that they've made offers, super minimal, neutral Ukraine would have been enough (which then NATO accepts Ukraine will never join NATO ... but after the war, super good offers were made, Russia doesn't want war, but we have security interests same as you etc.) is completely essential to Russia's maintaining trading relations with the rest of the world, which is completely essential to its war effort.
All this to say that these diplomatic positions, that seem so small and irrelevant in the West's kindergarten analytical framework of erratic moral positions and expectation that some authority figure will "punish" the bad boy, seemingly small things such as publicly accepting rather than publicly rejecting a reasonable offer, has real consequences. It may feel good to declare Russia liars and you can't deal with them and they'll never abide by an agreement ... but the alternative is indefinite warfare.
Where did I do so?
Rather than asking @boethius to trawl through 300 pages of posts to find an exact quote to cover the very obvious support you show for continued war, perhaps you could help progress past this unnecessary sticking point by simply telling us if you don't think the Ukrainians should fight. Then we'll know, @boethius can correct the misunderstanding and we can all move on.
By an essentially random search through your comments, in literally 1 minute:
Quoting Olivier5
Seems pretty strong support for the war ... and that it's well worth the price of the dead so far.
Which, maybe when you made that comment, had Ukraine used its leverage, and willing to fight is leverage, to negotiate peace terms maybe it would be worth the price, and maybe now it doesn't seem so clear.
And, to be clear, had Ukraine "fought hard" and then negotiated a peace, I wouldn't be critical of their strategy and diplomacy. It's clearly better than total capitulation from the outset.
However, total capitulation is better than an indefinite un-winnable war.
Already done.
Fortunately, it's not so inconvenient as trawling through 300 pages.
You can click on a posters name, then click on "comments" and get their most recent comments, scroll down and you can click more and then a number will appear in the URL of what comment to start at, which you can then change to jump around.
I see, thanks for the tip. Easy though it was, the clandestine game of "why don't you find out what I think by some trial of research", seemed ridiculous compared to "I don't think the Ukrainians should fight", or "I do think the Ukrainians should fight, but I haven't said as much yet". Either of which would have been more fluent.
But then the idea is clearly not fluency, the idea is to avoid having to address the salient points you've made by miring the conversation in some pedantic irrelevancy. We see it too often.
It doesn't. Russia's existing LNG capacity is a minor fraction of its pipeline capacity. Since Russia doesn't have mature LNG technology of its own and its foreign partners have pulled out of expansion projects, it won't be able to ramp up its LNG exports much further.
I'm aware of this, that's why I also mentioned the non-EU pipelines (mainly China but there's also some capacity to sell south ... of course so those nations can sell to the EU).
However, the main point was that oil generates 5 times the revenue than gas.
So it's simply not a big hit to reduce gas exports, in particular, as I mentioned, if the increase in price offsets the lower volume anyways.
Russia can also store gas while it builds further export capacity (also leave it in the ground and tap it later) ... maybe where their reserves come into play to just wait to sell later; resource doesn't disappear simply because you don't sell it today.
There is not logical necessity to export at maximum capacity and no inherent consequence to lowering exports.
All this to explain why Russia's energy export revenues are up.
I do agree there is some uncertainty as to the quality of Chinese and Indian capital equipment, but as long as it does function it's not some critical failure point.
The Western advanced engineering firms do have more efficient equipment, but efficiency isn't so critical in Russia's situation of producing energy.
I thought it was more that the Ukrainians will fight?
(not so much due to Zelenskyy, more that they're not inclined to hand the keys over to Russia)
Maybe that's just me.
I wouldn't mind them repelling the attacker-bomber, make the would-be land-grabber think twice, deter the invader. If they're going to fight? Heck yeah.
Not really, because this comment was made in the context of a discussion with @Tzeentch about NATO and the EU, to whom it pertains.
This comment of mine did not pertain to the Ukrainians. It's not for me to say if their sacrifice is worth it. They alone can decide on whether or not they should fight, or vie for a truce.
So I am saying this: given that the Ukrainians have decided to fight rather than surrender, and given their relative success so far in doing so, whatever the EU and US spend in support of the Ukrainian side appears to me well worth the price the EU and US are paying, if it helps humbling the Kremlin's militaristic ambitions for a generation.
So because some Ukrainians have decided to fight, you think subjecting all Ukrainians to prolonged war and decades of financial destitution is a good idea?
You can't just hide behind some arbitrary number of other people's decisions. You're supporting a course of action which will seriously harm those who had absolutely no say in that decision. That some people have decided they want to fight doesn't absolve you of responsibility for defending your moral support for a course of action that entails massive harms on non-consenting, innocent bystanders... The others. The ones who didn't decide to fight.
So NATO should support war with supplying arms ... but that's not a case for war?
Lot's of wars are considered by nearly all just wars, certainly most people here, there's no problem of principle, from the outset, arguing Ukraine's just war cause or NATO's just war cause.
The point of my comment was that you clearly genuinely believe your position, obviously our positions are very different (on at least some key points, not everything), debate and exchange of view ensues. What else would people expect from such a controversial and emotional topic as a war.
If Ukraine achieved a decisive battle field victory, or Russia did collapse and retreat begging for sanctions to be lifted, would you really be hedging your language now? Or would be be running internet victory laps.
Which, to be clear, I'm not criticising your passion for your cause. That part is noble. And, likewise, willing to submit your passion to scrutiny, which you do address and do reformulate your position (bad faith I only consider when criticism isn't even addressed), is likewise noble.
Of course, I still think you're wrong.
But, if you were right and there was some decisive Ukrainian victory or Russian regime collapse (which at the start I thought was a real possibility), for sure, in such a scenario I would be accepting my analysis was simply wrong.
However, @Isaac has made a more complete retort to the core moral issue, so I'll just repeat it again:
Quoting Isaac
It's a case for the US and EU to support the Ukrainian war effort, for as long as they need it.
Quoting boethius
Of course I would plead for a rapid end to the sanctions, if Moscow gives adequate assurances that it will mend its ways.
This seems to me clearly a pro-war position.
And, at the start of a conflict with Russia as a smaller nation, I would agree with fighting. I have trained for precisely this strategy.
The whole point of a conventional deterrent against a vastly more powerful force (and Russia's nuclear weapons makes them vastly more powerful), is to make a negotiated peace a better option for the aggressor than a costly and unpredictable fight.
Being willing to fight (even in a losing situation) is leverage in a negotiation.
However, if you demonstrate your willingness to fight ... and then don't negotiate, you not only lose your leverage the more you lose but you also motivate your opponent to demand more to compensate the costly fight.
What has happened in Ukraine is a missed opportunity for a negotiated peace early (or even before) the conflict.
This missed opportunity is I think very clearly due to a false sense of security provided by NATO (Zelensky seemed to genuinely believe he would get a NATO no-fly zone) while no NATO power did anything to explain to Zelensky the end-game if he refused to negotiate with Russia and accept some concessions (which, had it been explained that social media glory today is gone tomorrow, the weapons may not come forever and may not even be enough, the costs of trying to "win" by force may not be remotely worth it, and it's not at all clear how that's even remotely possible).
There is only one reason for that: US wanted this war to happen and to drag on as it has, and the EU leaders are basically puppets willing to harm their own people's interest, harm millions of Ukrainians, for US interests to reduce EU leverage to basically zero on the world stage, and have the EU submit as a bumbling and weak diplomatic side-kick and jester. The EU is basically the US' choir at this point.
That's clearly pro war. Why call it something different?
Supporting NATO supporting the Ukrainian war effort ... is clearly supporting the Ukrainian war effort.
New variant on "guns don't kill people...".
"I don't support war, I just support supporting war."
Mmmokay. But if the Ukrainians decide to vie for a truce, i'm fine with that.
You would do well to take your distance with lower IQ, hit-and-miss posters, such as Isaac. He is only misleading you, here as well as elsewhere. For you see, my argument with Tzeench for EU and US support the Ukrainian war effort was not a moral case at all. I am not saying that the Ukrainians have some sort of moral right to indefinite Western assistance -- such a moral position would be naïve in this particular instance.
Mine is a pragmatist, real politics-based position. I am saying that it makes perfect strategic sense for the US and EU to weaken expansionist Russia, if the Ukrainians are willing to fight. I trust you will agree to that, even if you may try, tactically here, to paint this proxy war approach in negative moral terms, and to wax some ethical veneer on your own cynicism.
Again, supporting NATO supporting Ukraine's war effort, is supporting Ukraine's war effort.
Support is support, regardless of the justification and regardless of whether it's indefinite support or not.
If I support a political candidate, doesn't mean I'm committed to support indefinitely nor that if I reevaluate my support somehow that retroactively removes the support I provided in the past.
Your position is obviously support to Ukraine's war effort since starting on this thread.
Yes, please, explain your reasons for it, that's the purpose of discussing, and obviously many, many people in the West support Ukraine's war effort, so it's good for the purposes of discussion that someone represents that position.
Furthermore, realist, pragmatic and strategic decisions are still for the purposes of some moral objective.
None of these are amoral things, just analytical frameworks on how best to achieve moral objectives in the real, messy world where nothing is ideal and compromise is always necessary (simply limited resources forces us to compromise on what moral objectives are practical to pursue).
Realism, pragmatism and strategy are analytical tools to try to understand what the actual consequences of different actions are likely to be. Actual likely consequences are clearly relevant to decision making.
However, real consequences in a complex world, don't somehow make the moral objectives irrelevant, just bring to the for difficult decisions.
For example, in WWII, the allies broke Enigma and so could know when ships would be attacked, when and where.
Many ships were not warned or told to change course because it would risk statistically tipping off the Nazi's that enigma had been broken and they may do a full reset of all the code books, change wheels and so on.
Obviously the goal was to save lives, but a realistic, pragmatic, and strategic analysis concluded some lives needed to be knowingly sacrificed to optimise the covert information advantage over the longest possible time frame.
Someone could have spoken up for the fact it's the Germans that are morally responsible for the attacks and the deaths, they're duty is to save lives and so they must warn everyone they can, and if the German's change their codes and then kill more people it's their moral issue and doesn't matter.
The difference between such a naive fool and the mathematicians that worked out a formula of who to save and who let die, is simply the time frame under consideration. What achieves the goal (saving lives) in the short term may be counterproductive to the same goal over the long term.
Maybe this long thread has covered the salient points raised in this video but I haven't read the last 150-200 posts, so someone tell me what this presentation gets wrong. Jives well with my (simplified) reckoning of Russia's accelerating insolvancy. :victory: :smirk:
Yes, but do note Transnistria is also tiny compared to the Donbas. Transnistria has a population of 347000 people, perhaps earlier half a million. The breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk have 3,7 million people in them (even if many have left the region).
Quoting SophistiCat
Totally agree with you and this looks quite evident now.
Quoting SophistiCat
I think Putin and Russian's understand that toppling Lukashenko can make things even worse. The last thing Russia would want is to handle political turmoil or at worse, an insurgency in Belarus. That basically Russia can use the territory of Belarus without fears that Ukraine attacking it is enough for now.
Quoting SophistiCat
Your correct to talk about the medium term: Germany can build LNG ports, steer away from Russian gas, but not before it has to endure next winter. Creating new infrastructure simply takes time and if peace-time development speed is used (with all NIMBYs complaining to courts about the construction) it will take several years.
A real possibility is that today's globalization will morph to a world with competing economic axis: the West and Russia-China opposing each other.
Quoting SophistiCat
Russia won't collapse, it will survive, but it won't collapse. Iran and it's sanctions is a good example of this.
Ukraine is economically absolutely devastated. But then it's fighting for it's survival. Economic hardships don't matter so much, when your facing even greater danger (which Ukrainians can see from the actions of Russians in the occupied territories).
Yet apart from a Crimea-like victorious sudden invasion (which didn't go through), Russia has not the manpower to occupy totally a country as large as Ukraine. Basically what it could do is to gain the area of "Novorossiya", which it is largely holding apart from Odessa and the Western coastline of Ukraine. The inability of Ukraine to contain Russia forces in the Crimean Peninsula has been one of Ukraine's failures in this war.
Good question. I'll take a try.
When the documentary is saying "sanctions are working", first think what sanctions working would really mean?
Would Russia really stop the fighting and accept a peace favorable to Ukraine? I think not, yet "sanctions working" obviously would have to do that.
The last time sanctions did work was with South Africa: the country finally accepted to stop it's Apartheid-policies and give power to the black majority. Yet South Africa didn't view the West as an existential threat the way Iran, Venezuela and Cuba see the West and especially the US. North Korea basically is still at war with the US as there is only an armstice between the countries. Economic sanctions are just the new normal (or even the old normal) for them. South Africa was basically on the side of the US during the Cold War.
Yeah, Russians are now missing many things that earlier came from the West. They have now all kinds of problems and do feel the sanctions. Yet how will this work? Why would Putin submit when he sees the West as an existential threat to himself (and for Russia). As Russia is quite totalitarian and there are now far more political prisoners than in the end of the Soviet Union, it can endure these sanctions.
In fact just think what Ukraine is enduring now. More than every tenth Ukrainian is now a refugee. The GDP of Ukraine has fallen 45%. It basically cannot export it's produce. And it's losing a terrifying number of men daily and the death toll from this war (that started in 2014) will be very high. So wouldn't those kind of effects put Ukrainians into the negotiating table? No, because they see the war literally as an existential threat. And when people feel that they are facing an existential threat, ordinary issues like the standard of living doesn't matter.
Fair enough. And what has been your position then, if not support to Russia's war effort?
Some say that NATO defends members together against Russia, constraining free rein.
Might not be an "exclusive or"; we can consider both. I'm guessing markedly more people are interested in Russia not rolling over others, than rolling over Russia. For that matter, I'm guessing markedly more people are interested in good relations, building trust, reliability, trade, than posturing and hostilities. Putin + team could be a different matter.
Ukraine sought membership, now canceled, ? threats stand out. Sweden and Finland seek membership, now under way, the defense thing above. Unfair if you will; at least Ukrainians haven't been left on their own.
Peace would mean the attacker stops attacking (a defender can't just declare peace :grin:), i.e. Putin's Russia.
What might Zelenskyy capitulating entail, jus post bellum? We can only guess, check history, Russia, ... Meanwhile the Ukrainians are fighting :fire: for their sovereignty and such; a capitulation would not end fighting, but tune it down, and render it "illegal". Surrendering to evil is a wretched pseudo-peace, we have examples where this is worse than resistance/war, or where fighting is just. (I'll abstain from a quote-spam, Plato, Tacitus, Burke, Mill, Niemöller, Wiesel.) Peace ? is the goal, not bad peace.
So, ehh anyway, NATO, a threat to and/or defense against Putin's Russia?
[sub]• Ukraine | Médecins Sans Frontières medical and humanitarian aid; • List of foreign aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War
• Antebellum South; • Auschwitz; • North Korea; • Uyghur; • Russia: Authorities launch witch-hunt to catch anyone sharing anti-war views
• World Development Report 2011 : Conflict, Security, and Development; • In the aftermath of Genocide: Guatemala’s failed reconciliation (worthwhile read)
[/sub]
EDIT:
Should have mentioned that ...
Quoting jorndoe
... has been commented on quite a bit in the thread (re-repeats).
If we are talking about sanctions as a tool to influence immediate decision-making, such as starting or escalating hostilities, then it is the threat of sanctions that sometimes works (and it does sometimes work). When deterrence fails, sanctions still have to be levied in order to maintain their future credibility, but they will almost never force a reversal. That is where we are now: sanctions, as you say, will not force Russia to stop its aggression and return the territory it has seized.
That said, success or failure can be hard to attribute for counterfactual events. You will know when sanctions fail. But, for example, if Putin did not order the attack when he did, would that be attributable to the threat of sanctions? How would we know? Even now we don't know for sure whether sanctions or the threat of further sanctions have deterred Russia from doing something it could have done (like deploying chemical weapons - not likely in any event, in my opinion, but just as an example).
Sanctions can have other effects than influencing decisions here and now. The most obvious effect of the present sanctions is in degrading Russia's war potential. That effect will be mostly delayed, but some of it is arguably felt even now. Russia has spent much of its high-precision munition stocks, and rebuilding will be challenging, partly due to sanctions. They are now reduced to lobbing dated anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles at ground structures, which is far from optimal. They also have a shortage of drones, NVGs, navigation, communication and other high-tech equipment - same problem here.
Other sanctions seem like pointless virtue-signalling, punishing people and organizations that have no power to influence events. It could be that even those sanctions will have an indirect effect by provoking disaffection, social tensions, brain drain (that last one is very evident), and thus gradually weakening the regime. This is a highly uncertain territory though, as the effect can be, and likely is, precisely the opposite.
This is true, but when there is a will, there will be a way. At least with time. Sanctions are a way to hinder the ability, but when you have the ability to make the needed components, even if inferior, then with time you will overcome the problems caused by sanctions and embargoes.
One of the best examples are the Iranian Grumman F-14 Tomcats, top-of-the-line fighters bought by the Shah of Iran just before the Islamic Revolution in the 1970's. After the revolution happened all supplies and parts to the fighters were stopped by the US. Yet not only did the Iranian F-14 fighters perform well in the Iran-Iraq war (with the only Tomcat aces being now Iranian pilots), but the aircraft are still after 40 years still flying.
When a country basically puts it entire army to attack a neighboring country, then obviously it's such a major "policy initiative" that simply the threat of sanctions will not change. Sanctions will be seen as a minor issue. Hence in fact sanctions and embargoes work when they are initiated by some action or policy that in importance is similar to international trade and/or international relations. Yet when one country commits to such an enormous task or feels that it's facing an existential risk, then sanctions are a side issue.
Putin has shown many times that he doesn't care about stock market prices, relations with the West and international trade relations etc. when he has initiated his wars.
Higher World prices coming in the future...even if prices were rising before the war in Ukraine.
However, the Saky base is about 210 km from the nearest area under Ukrainian control. Very few weapons in the Ukrainian arsenal allow strikes so far and above all so precise. The Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missile can cover the distance and reach a land target, but kyiv has only a very small number of them, intended in principle to protect the coasts in the Odessa region from a landing. Furthermore, it is a subsonic missile, therefore vulnerable to Russian surface-to-air defenses.
What is obvious is the extent of the material damage. Many civilian buildings were badly damaged and dozens of cars parked several hundred meters from the airfield were burnt out. A brief video, filmed inside the airfield, shows an almost unrecognizable Su-24 fighter jet with its wings missing. In a satellite image taken a few hours before the explosions, thirty-seven fighter planes and six helicopters were visible on the tarmac.
Other videos broadcast from the beach, a few kilometers away, show holidaymakers flabbergasted by the violence of the explosions and hastily leaving the premises.
The incident would have caused the departure of very many summer visitors, until a long traffic jam was formed at the level of the Crimean bridge, in the direction of returns to Russia.
" It's only a beginning "
The Russian authorities immediately sought to minimize the scope of the event, speaking of "spontaneous detonation of ammunition" , and dismissing the hypothesis of a successful Ukrainian attack. “No trace of a Ukrainian missile has been found ,” repeat the officials. The death toll from the explosions was one dead and fifteen injured, according to the local health ministry. "It is reminiscent of the sinking of the cruiser Moskva , " said Russian political scientist Andrei Kolesnikov.Ukraine should by no means be shown as effective in the Russian narrative. Only the Russian military is capable of carrying out surgical strikes. Russian tourists must continue to believe that Crimea is untouchable and that Russian soldiers are infallible. The Moskva , flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, sank on April 14 after being hit by two Ukrainian Neptune missiles, but Moscow has always maintained its version that an accidental fire was the cause of the sinking.
(Le Monde)
‘We Need to Get Out of Here’: Fear Grips Annexed Crimea After Airbase Attack
By Anastasia Tenisheva and James Beardsworth, the Moscow Times
Updated: Aug. 10, 2022
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/08/10/we-need-to-get-out-of-here-fear-grips-annexed-crimea-after-airbase-attack-a78541
But how about the actual winners in this war: Qatar
Limited effect on Russia. Europe on the other hand... There's a lot of Dutch families having trouble paying their bills due to the increased energy prices and there's a larger wave expected at the end of the year when the invoice for actual use is sent. Here we have a system where you pay an advance, which is calculated on historic use but also prices when the advance is set (eg. beginning of the year or contract if you have a longer term contract). So unless people have voluntarily raised the advance, they will have a hefty bill at the end of the year. The National Institute for Family Finance Information has already pointed out too little people are doing this and they expect a significant spike in defaults at the beginning of next year.
So if sanctions aren't really hurting Russia but are hurting the most vulnerable in our own societies, why continue with them?
I believe the logic is that the whole narrative of fighting a war without actually fighting it, only makes sense if there's at least the suffering part.
Look! We're suffering for the war effort! We're so committed!
Of course, the people making this policy don't suffer, and they clearly do not care about those that do. I think this is pretty obvious in the fact that whenever the subject of nuclear war comes up, White House et. al., are unhesitating in declaring we can't have that (therefore no no-fly zone, no "offensive weapons" etc.) but a total collapse of the Russian state would also be a likely nuclear war scenario: therefore, there was never any genuine belief sanctions would accomplish that.
It also seems to me improbable that there was any belief that the sanctions would "work", rather the goal is a new cold war theatre which requires a new iron curtain.
I will go back and quote myself outlining again and again my position, but for now I will just summarise it again.
My first priority is to avoid death, suffering and trauma of children.
Obviously, the best way to avoid that is to avoid war in the first place.
There seems to be a genuine incapacity to understand the realist position I and others have defended here as well as presented by John Mearsheimer.
NATO playing "tough" could have avoided the war.
Almost no one criticises the American response to the Cuban missile crisis. But only because it worked. Had it resulted in nuclear exchange (even with the exact same political decisions, just things randomly got out of hand in such a tense standoff), people might have a lot of criticism.
What Mearsheimer point out is the simple truth that US / NATO is simply not willing to actually play tough, before, during or after the war, proven by the fact that it doesn't.
US and NATO declare some sort of Ukrainian pathway to join in 2008 ... so why didn't that happen?
Had they played tough, such as letting Ukraine in after 2008 in a midnight "super diplomacy" deal, or before 2014 ... or anytime after, maybe the war would have been averted.
Had US / NATO done some "tough" move, made a standoff, some deal is reached and Russia backs down. I would be totally for it. I am not criticising Ukraine in NATO if that averted war.
And, other things could be offered the Russians: Nord Stream 2, pulling back forward operating missile bases to "protect against Iran", no Ukrainian military forces on the Russian border, lifting all sanctions, Russian language protection, UN supervised vote of status of Dombas and Crimea etc. (not a requirement 2008-2014, when guarantees for Sevastopol and Russian minority rights would likely have been enough).
Nuclear war is not a foregone conclusion for the simple fact of letting Ukraine in. It's in anyways unlikely as Russia also doesn't want full scale nuclear war, and it's always possible to imagine some compensation to Russia that would convince them to not use tactical nukes in Ukraine, daring the US to respond with strategic nuclear strikes (again, unlikely because US also doesn't want nuclear exchange).
The reason this scenario isn't talked about is just that it's so obvious that US doesn't care about Ukraine enough to put in that kind of standoff and diplomatic energy. US and other NATO countries don't give a shit about Ukraine.
Which results in the terrible policy position of supporting Ukraine just enough to maximise Ukrainian suffering. This is not a morally or politically sound position.
And US at. al. don't even really hide it, they speak plainly that the goal is to "fight Russia in Ukraine so as not to fight them here," totally absurd (as Russia is not about to invade the US if "Ukraine falls") and basically admits to Ukrainians being cannon fodder in this strategy.
The reason to focus on the policy position of my own government and political blocks is that's the policy I'm morally responsible for as a citizen.
I'd also only get into some debate of the Russian moral and political justifications, if my pro-US interlocutors demonstrate how Russia's war in Ukraine is not as justified as the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture programs, or violating sovereignty of other countries with both over and cover operations all the time without hesitation, in the name of "US interests".
And this is not whataboutism fallacy.
First, whataboutism is not a fallacy in the first place. It is a completely legitimate question to say "what about this other thing" to see how a position deals with it.
In a good faith debate a "what about this other thing" question is simply going through some other example to understand the principles of a position and how they operate, for better mutual understanding.
In a bad faith debate, "what about this other thing" is not a fallacy, just a waste of time or then deflecting from legitimate questions one has already received. For example, had I not answered your question of what my position, and simply said "what about the US!" then that would be bad faith and hypocritical, as I am demanding satisfaction of a question when I already in debt to perfectly legitimate one's myself.
In particular, whataboutism is bad faith when deflecting from internal criticism. For example, democrats defending obvious democrat corruption by saying "what about the Republicans". Republicans have nothing to do with democratic party integrity and the best way to fight Republican corruption is to provide a less corrupt example. The sub-text is alway "but we need to be corrupt to win!" ... but "win what?", well, obviously the fruits of corruption.
US proponents are in debt to the question of "what about Iraq," (as well as many other wars / covert actions) and in the US' own justifications of its action, Russia is justified by far according to those standards. Ukraine presents a far greater security threat to Russia than Iraq did the US. The whole there are bio labs that can't fall into enemy hands, seems far greater evidence of WMD's than US had concerning Iraq; if the Ukrainian biological WMD's don't exist ... well neither Iraq nuclear weapons or capacity to build them. Russian soldiers and officers have certainly done some torturing on their own initiative, but there is so far no evidence it is an institutional decision ... whereas US simply legalised torture and built large and sophisticated torture operations; I'm certainly willing to believe Russians do have institutional mandated torture programs, but that just brings them to parity.
Then there's the neo-Nazi question. Certainly not-invading Ukraine is appeasing these overtly Nazi organisations. The argument is they don't have enough influence in Ukraine to satisfy such an argument ... but what's the standard, how many Nazis is too many Nazis with too much power and influence.
Russia uses propaganda ... US uses propaganda.
That being said, if I the question was put to me after somehow responding to all these questions and demonstrating that Russia cannot easily justify its war effort according to the US' own standards set for itself, or then from simply a anti-Russian and anti-US position, certainly Russia could have done more to avoid war. There is a faction in Russia that wanted this war as much as the analogous faction in the US. These factions together pushed things towards war and not peace. They are morally culpable, but so too the less violent factions on both sides that did not oppose the process playing out in slow motion over several decades.
Why?
They were bribed not to intervene in the process in a way that might change the outcome.