> we need to be serious about our adversary that keeps threatening to nuke major European cities off the map
Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t. We’re back to realpolitik.
Russian boats should be subject to boarding and searching when passing by Finnish and adjacent waters; for precedent, they can cite China claiming its sovereign waters include vastly adjacent waters to its own.
Russia flirted with Turkish airspace in 2015; Ankara shot it down [1]. Zero further provocations. You can’t appease a bully by lying prostrate. Even if the bully has big guns at home. We aren’t risking nuclear war by drawing clear lines, we’re inviting it by clumsily blurring them.
Europe is doing no such thing. They are preparing for physical war by drastically increasing military spending [1], and some countries are already sending out "be ready for war" information sheets. [2]
Europe isn't a homogeneous block in this question, though. Some parts do what GP said, IMO.
For example, Germany also increased its military spending, true - but from a low starting point, with an army even sometimes lacking basic supplies like dumb ammunition due to massive underfunding since the end of the cold war.
The (possible, maybe!) reintroduction of drafting will be agonizingly slow, as the military doesn't have the capacity anymore (and will lack it for years to come!) to even examine even a small percentage of each year, let alone equip and train them. There are no KWEAs (Kreiswehrersatzämter, drafting centers) anymore, and the new "Career Centers" have abysmal throughput.
We sold a very very significant chunk of our military bases and heavy equipment. Those are gone, the federal government often doesn't even own the land anymore. We have almost no working bunkers anymore, both military and public. Etc, etc.
Those are things which we would have to start to change immediately, as it takes ages until we see results. We do sorta, but on a tiny scale - it's not the massive investment you would expect for a country readying itself for conflict.
German politics / state departments are, IMO, in no way readying the public for the real prospect of military conflict. Pistorius, the German defence minister, basically screams into the void. Yes, many agree in talk, but the walk is quite underwhelming.
The defence ministry says we have to be ready for war until 2029. Most projects which are started now will, based on information by the same ministry, never ever be finished until before the 2030s. And yet, there is no hurry visible. We still have time.
A friend of mine visited Germany and talked to Germans about the threat of nuclear war and what they may or may not be doing. She said there was a very bizarre "it will never happen" vibe wherever she asked. Germans basically laughed at her for taking it as a serious concern worth discussing, even smart Germans with solid academic backgrounds. In the US it is a very different story. Whether a Stanford alumni or a rando at a bar Americans are much less likely to laugh you off for taking the prospect of nuclear war seriously.
You can also ask germans directly here. I would tell you, many people take it serious, judging from HN comments, way more than americans, some just like to remain in their safe space bubble.
Well, how does the answer change for an American? I mean we don't have the same thousands of megaton scale nukes anymore but still enough to fuck uf the world enough via one actor.
We're more realistic. We hope it will never happen. But we fear it might. Strategic nuclear bombardment is something that should be feared, not pooh-poohed.
And how exactly would that change the military strategy of a non-nuclear armed European strategy (save for NBC protection in armored vehicles I suppose...) or even individual people?
For me it just makes zero sense to lose much sleep about it, except for voting I can't do nothing about it
lol we get those pamphlets sent out every now and then. Of course it's related to the increase tension, but it's not the huge call sign you make it out to be. "be ready for war" means "be ready in case something happens", not "be ready for what's about to happen."
Common, everyone cried at all the demons when Trump asked Europe to reach 2% of GDP on military spending in 2018. Had we done it, we’d have DOUBLED our spending.
Russia is at 6.3%, USA at 3.4% (7x Russia’s in absolute spending), Europe at 1.3%.
Culture-wise, it’s unthinkable for Europe to come around and revive the military-industrial complex. We’re basically trying to win this war by crossing our fingers, like the French did in 1936 (the famous Congés Payés were offered in 1936, with beautiful photos of parisians going to the beach, while our German cousins were in factories manufacturing guns. Guess who won the war).
He also wasn't exactly disparaging it. He said we need it, but we must not let it become too powerful or influential. The truth of that hasn't really changed.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
He absolutely disparaged it, in fact he considered it a fundamental threat to democracy.
"Military industrial complex" isn't about maintaining a large, dominant military. It's about industry becoming so entwined with the military that they start calling the shots, and military decisions begin to be made for the benefit of corporations rather than the nation.
> everyone cried at all the demons when Trump asked Europe to reach 2% of GDP on military spending in 2018.
No, that's not what people had a problem with, and it's barely even what Trump said.
Trump claimed (again) that the less-spending-than-recommended nations somehow owed payments to the US, and threatened that the US would violate the treaty if they somehow didn't keep him satisfied!
That's the stuff that was new and controversial, and for damn good reasons.
Other parties were already violating the treaty by not spending 2%. It's simple Tit for tat.
> Trump claimed (again) that the less-spending-than-recommended nations somehow owed payments to the US
The US was shouldering the cost of international security (being a hegemon) You take European stability and welfare for granted, we can't know what the world would look like without pax Americana but I'm certain it would be worse. The 'rules based international community' You couldn't even stop a genocide on the EUs front door.
I'm as frustrated as anyone about Europe not pulling their weight, but it's not in violation of the treaty. The 2% guideline has nothing to do with the treaty itself. It's precisely that, a non-binding guideline.
>Russia flirted with Turkish airspace in 2015; Ankara shot it down [1]. Zero further provocations. You can’t appease a bully by lying prostrate. Even if the bully has big guns at home. We aren’t risking nuclear war by drawing clear lines, we’re inviting it by clumsily blurring them.
Zero further provocations doesn't seem right [1] [2]
Freedom of navigation is a part of international law major powers usually care about, because international trade serves their interests.
Maybe a bunch of small North European countries decide to blockade Russia in the Baltic Sea, and maybe Russia doesn't consider this an act of war, because NATO seems credible enough. Suddenly the Houthi attempt to blockade the Red Sea becomes much more legitimate, and Iran will certainly take note. Maybe Panama goes shopping for allies (since the US is starting to look unpredictable), and maybe China gains the power to decide who gets to use the canal. And maybe Turkey (which is technically a NATO member but not in particularly friendly terms with the West) decides that it is allowed to control access to the Black Sea.
>maybe Turkey (which is technically a NATO member but not in particularly friendly terms with the West) decides that it is allowed to control access to the Black Sea
Interestingly, Turkey is allowed -- by the Montreux Convention -- to close the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to warships and in fact have been doing so since 2022:
>Turkey has closed off the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships from any country, whether or not they border the Black Sea, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The strait closures will still allow warships through if they are returning to a home base in the Black Sea, according to reporting from Naval News. This would include Russian ships in the country’s Black Sea Fleet. However, the decision to restrict warships, a power given to Turkey by the Montreux Convention of 1936, will likely limit Russia’s ability to move ships from its other fleets to the Black Sea.
I don't see how things not being considered legitimate by the West currently stops anyone but the West and even that only a little bit, with exception of US that does whatever it pleases all the time.
International politics is not a war of all against all. It's more like a pre-state society governed by informal norms and expectations and personal relationships between the elites.
People like predictable rules. If the big guy says that the seas are open and they are open, you will probably support the rule, because it allows you to focus more on trade and less on protecting your interests by force. But if the seas are open, except for those the big guy doesn't like, then you may start wondering if you'll also end up on that list.
Big guys also try to enforce the rules. If piracy or an unjustified blockade threatens the freedom of navigation, naval powers will try to restore the status quo.
Reciprocity is an important norm in international politics. It makes things a bit like a mix of little kids arguing and common law. The key principle is that if the big guy and his friends area allowed to do X for their reasons, it sets the precedent that you are allowed to do what you consider the equivalent of X for your reasons. Either the big guy follows his own rules, or everyone is allowed to use their own judgment to break the rules. But if a random nobody breaks the rules, it doesn't set the precedent in the same way.
> International politics is not a war of all against all. It's more like a pre-state society governed by informal norms and expectations and personal relationships between the elites.
If someone violates the expectations but is not strong enough to defend his violation then expectations about behaviors of others towards him might be freely violated as well without destroying whole arrangement between conforming parties.
This discussion has happened a few times with medo-bear here on HN and it's always the same thing. Russia's actions are never their fault and Ukraine should just accept what Russia is doing because otherwise they're being manipulated by the west.
Nah, you don't get under my skin, but there's no point in discussing this with you as all you do is blame the US, the "west", and the bogeyman for Russia's actions and attack anyone that doesn't bend over to Russia. You are today's version of a "tankie" and to be honest, it's a bit sad to see.
There are not many here that 1) are incapable of criticising Russia, 2) blame everyone else for Russia's actions, and 3) struggle to understand why people simply don't bend over to Russia and their wishes. So yes, I do remember your username.
you seem to be proactively campaigning here on russia issues. why? this is a tech forum. i bet some of things i say stings your entrenched world view because they are completely obvious
Considering my only interactions with you here are replies to your blame deflection comments, I should be the one asking why are you campaigning on "Russia issues" on a tech forum.
Again, what you write doesn't get under my skin or "stings". To me, it's just dumb. Makes as much sense as defending a guy who beats his wife because "she made him do it". What's there to sting?
My world view doesn't involve glorifying countries or having double standards. This is not sports where you blindly defend your team and I blindly defend mine. For example, you criticise the US for invasions and for being imperialistic and then defend Russia for doing the same. I don't. You are incapable of criticising a country you support. I'm not. I'm far from being perfect, but I'm not that bad.
But don't let me stop you from doing Russia's dirty work for them. Keep defending their actions, their wars, their resource exploitation in Africa, and so on... blame it all on the evil west and anyone that doesn't accept the "russkiy mir".
> You mean the same Africa that the West enslaved and colonized?
And this is the big difference between you and me. I think that was wrong. You instead use it as a "it's fine because the West did it before".
You don't give a fuck and support it as long team Russia is the one benefiting while I think it's bad independently of who does it and refuse to support it.
> Everyone needs a vent, but you called me out personally whilst i dont care to remember who you are.
That's good for you mate.
> Funny enough seeing my previous engagements it is always the same people arguing the US story, pretending to be Ukranians
I'm not from the US or from Ukraine and have never pretended to be. And unlike you I don't come here to defended the actions of an aggressor.
> You instead use it as a "it's fine because the West did it before".
actually mainly im saying that this is all expected as it is part of the rules of the game set by the West
anyway lets be honnest, you obviously support the US and NATO, and you are simply having a tantrum because someone has an opposite view. what else is the point of this exchange? your guys do so much crap to the world and answer to no one. israel (your side) killed 4x more civilians in a year than russia in 3 years. your lads litteraly think it is their god given right to rule the world. true, i think they are a bigger threat to world peace than Russia, but i would never say that Russia is 'right' or that i support Russian imperialism, but I do think that right now maybe they are less wrong in some sense. if Ukraine had a true independence movement, one that wasnt a lackey for another world power (for example like viet cong, plo, yugoslav partizans, polish resistance) I would support Ukraine completely. unfortunately it does not
as for africa, what on earth do you think uk france and US do there? also ukraine seems to be arming islamists there. what do you think about that?
> actually mainly im saying that this is all expected as it is part of the rules of the game set by the West
From that point of view, since everyone's playing the same game now, you can't complain when the west does it. It's "all expected".
I'm not like you. If it's bad, it's bad. I won't go "oh, the US can invade Mexico because Russia did it too".
> anyway lets be honnest, you obviously support the US and NATO, and you are simply having a tantrum because someone has an opposite view. what else is the point of this exchange? [...]
I support the US and NATO when they deserve my support. I don't support them when they do something I disagree with. Only brainless morons support a side no matter what... With this said, I'm not going to blame the US, NATO, or Ukraine for a war Russia - and Russia alone - decided to start in 2014 and expand in 2022.
I'm fine with different points of view, but you take it so far that you blame everyone else but Russia for Russia's own actions. That's fanboy behaviour, plain dumb stuff. It makes me shake my head, not have a tantrum.
There was no exchange here. I didn't reply to you, you replied to my comment. I warned others that you are a simp for Russia that are incapable of criticising them, thus any discussion with you is a waste of time (yes, I know this is a waste of my time). You'll blame someone else, point at what someone else did, criticise those being attacked, but never, ever, criticise Russia. In one comment you point out the Africa that the "West enslaved and colonized" and on the other point out that it's "all expected" if Russia is doing it. As I've said, based on your comments on HN, you are a modern day tankie, a useful fool for those doing shitty things. And since you like sides, yes, my side also has many useful fools... and I like them as much as I like you.
I don't know what you mean by "your lads". Am I part of some group now and no one told me? And where exactly have I defended Israel and what made you think that I'd be okay with it? Which part of "bad is bad" don't you understand?
Regarding Ukraine... you know what they say about opinions... we all have one. But Russia doesn't have any right to invade and annex parts Ukraine and no amount of "buts", "ifs", and finger pointing at those you don't like changes this. What they're doing is either right or wrong. If you think it's right, then fine, but cut the bullshit and the excuses. I on the other hand think it's wrong and won't defend it.
> as for africa, what on earth do you think uk france and US do there? also ukraine seems to be arming islamists there. what do you think about that?
A turd is a turd, independently of its nationality. Unlike you, I won't call it a nice turd just because it's French... or Russian. Do you get it now or will you ask me again if <something wrong> is good or acceptable to me if done by the west?
What will be your next "what about..."? Who are you going to blame next for Russia's own actions? Can't wait for more victim blaming!
While I'd loooove to discuss how Russia is "less wrong in some sense" when they invade their neighbour and to see you blame a country for not accepting being annexed by Russia, I have more interesting things to do. Bye bye!
> I support the US and NATO when they deserve my support.
that is the difference between you and me. i would never support any imperialist group: russia/usa/nato/israel including their proxies like the current government of ukraine
but tbh at the rate you are going you will start dreaming about MEDO-BEAR
__ __
/ \.-"""-./ \
\ - - /
| o o |
\ .-'''-. /
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you replied within minutes of me posting after saying you wouldnt. chill
> Says medo-bear, which supports Russia and their imperialist affairs
not supports but explains. like dont pat a dog from above or else it might bite you. or dont try to bring a sworn enemy to the doorstep of your more powerful neighbour or else it might invade you
I know, sorry, but I feel the urge to reply when you say that you don't support any imperialist group but write comments defending the actions of an imperialist group. And I'm chill, it's just that the comment changed after I replied, and I wanted to make that clear.
If you don't support or defend Russia's actions, then I think you're doing a bad job communicating your position. I say "Russia did this", you say "what about that thing the US did". You make a good point about Israel, but then use it to minimise what Russia is doing. You criticise the west for their actions in Africa, but when confronted with what Russia is doing today, you ask about what France, the UK, and the US are doing instead of criticising Russia too. Russia starts a war and the only logical explanation if the victim resists is that they're controlled by the west. You criticise NATO's expansion, but don't see that it's Russia's behaviour that causes countries to want to join NATO. And so on.
Hopefully you can understand why I said you were a useful fool. It's a lot of whataboutism and deflection (and little explaining), especially for someone that disagrees with Russia's actions.
im honoured you write to me on the first day of the new year :)
you accused me of being a tankie in support of putin or russia or whatever. my influence on world events is completely insignificant so even if i hold these positions you shouldnt really waste this much time on me
however what you fail to realize is that the ukranian government has allowed itself to be THE useful idiot for US interests with extremely deadly consequences. this is why i do not support the Ukranian government and its war effort. moreover i am extremely against their conscription drive. i find it disgusting
i really am morally against putins war on ukraine. i also dont like putin as a politician. but again this is inconsequential. however what i can also say about it is that it was completely predictable and expected.
again i am completely convinced that the US is using ukranians as cannon fodder for its own interests. in fact i even suspect that alot of western politicians are privately enjoying the fact that two biggest slavic nations in europe are killing eachother
you can call things i point out whataboutism, i see them as examples of prevailing hypocricy. it is important to ask these questions because the US and its propaganda arm always talk about rules based order international law etc while carring for none of that when it comes to its own interests. and this war is 100% between US and Russia with the Ukranian government acting as useful idiot for the US and ukranian prople caught in the middle of everything. it is very sad
finally ... i find it quite curious that there are few of you determined to keep this exchange going with me and you are all using quite the same terminology and manner of communicating. are you the same person?
This person has said that Ukraine "provoked russia into invading" by talking about joining NATO. It doesn't make sense and it's not going to make sense.
An interesting detail about language that not many people know: the "sense making" involved in language occurs within the mind of the reader, it is not contained within the language itself.
So if something doesn't make sense, it is possible (but not necessarily so) that it is a skills or ideology issue with the reader.
Note also that detecting ideological bias in oneself is a very difficult thing to do, but it seems like the opposite.
It makes more sense than the US going into Vietnam to stop the rise of communism at home. Unfprtunately this is what imperialist powers do, and in this sense Russia was provoked. More importabtly, given the strategic importance of Ukraine as a buffer to Russia, this is also how world wars happen. But many people seem to have this illusion that Russians are stupid orks arriving in zomby like waves with nothing but shovels
This is textbook whataboutism and has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
in this sense Russia was provoked.
Russia was not provoked in any sense.
"I want what you have" as a rationalization for murder would be classified as the trait of a psychopath: A person who engages repeatedly in criminal and antisocial behavior without remorse or empathy for those victimized.
im saying that all imperialist powers are essentially the same and equally bad. including the us (the only country to date to have used nuclear weapons). if you want something closer to the point at hand see Iran Air Flight 655
> Russia was not provoked in any sense
as an imperialist power it was provoked in every sense. the US knew they were provoking russia. maybe they thought russia wouldnt go to war. but its obvious they were provoked
To you envidence doesnt make sense and so you naturally call it nonsense. Kind of like a flat-earther. In the part of EU where I live a solid majority feel sorry for Ukranians because it is common knowledge that only idiots dont see that this is a war being faught for foreign interests. And no we are not pro Putin. But sometimes it is useful to see things how the other side sees things, at least as a sobering effect. We have no interest in further wars and strongly believe this can be resolved diplomatically. Unfortunatelly (ie not something that pleases us) the harsh reality is that Ukraine will have to make huge political sacrifices because it allowed itself to be dictated by interests of island countries
Ukraine wanted to bring Russia's number one security concern (NATO alliance and its eastward expansion) to Russia's doorstep, Russia reacted, and Ukraine is paying dearly for it. What else do you need?
How is that not true, though? Claiming it’s Ukraines fault for the war is absurd, but joining NATO was always going to be seen as a provocative act. It’s geopolitics and there’s never black and white lines.
Obviously attempts of bullying victim to join a friend group that might protect them is provocative to the bully, as it might limit their capacity to do the bullying.
The question is, why should we avoid doing it rather than let them escalate and use this opportunity to stomp the bully. Which is in the works and will happen in few years.
Because this isn’t the school yard. And the country you label a “bully” has nukes and probably cares more about Ukraine than you do, based on willingness for sacrifices (though in reverse).
There were people talking like you among JFK’s chief of staff during the Cuban Missile crisis. Same argument. Had JFK listened to them, we very likely would not be here today.
School bully might have a gun but if he uses it then it's game over for him too. And russia behaves like a bully. Any step back emboldens them. What might have been true at the height of cold war might not be true now. Befriending the opponent failed. Now it's time to finish the job and actually win the cold war. NATO already knows this and preparations have begun. There's very little chance to avoid the direct conflict unless russia collapses harder than it did when soviet union fell. This time they won't be keeping their nukes or whatever's left of them.
If this was a computer game, I’d see it the same way.
But unlike in a computer game, in the real world, that would you have labeled your enemy, does not simply disappear. If anything, you’ll create a vacuum. And I am not sure where you are taking the confidence that who or what ever feels that vacuum will be better than the status quo. The Americans have tried that in Iraq and Syria. The Vietnam war as well. And I believe the result, in every case, has been anything but that nice clean victory that “finishing off” of your enemy in a computer game promises.
In my view, this comes down to Chesterton’s fence. Before you tear down a fence, it would be helpful to understand how it came to be erected in the first place.
Please do correct me if I’m wrong, but pretty much the only time the strategy of killing of an enemy regime worked was Hitler. That was a man who applied industrial processes to murdering humans - rail networks, assembly line processing, gas chambers. This is not the level of evil we are facing here, at all.
If Putin is anything as evil as you think he is, he will surely have systems in place that will ensure the destruction of major cities in the United States in case of anything happening to him or his regime. You schoolyard, bully, metaphor, while having the benefit of being easy to understand, carries with it a risk - 1%, 5%? - that our children will find themselves in the world of A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Leaving the defeated be turned out to be a terrible idea again and again. Fortunately we have a very good blueprint for civilising rouge states straight out of World War II (as you noticed). Basically you need to divide and control. Indefinitely. Until democratic mechanisms are developed and society gets educated. Until a new generation grows and flourishes. Basically this time russia gets Germany treatment. This will cost money but still less that leaving them be. And some of it is going to be recouped with their natural resources.
Putin is just as evil as hitler and even more stupid and inept. While the West was developing, russia deteriorated. Nuclear capacity of russia is no longer believable. Attempts at demonstrating capacity for delivering icbm payloads ended up with crater on the launch site. The best they could do was Oreshnik that they try to sell as a new weapon which it isn't. The degree they try to lean into it and present it as a credible threat clearly shows that they have nothing else at this point and very few of that. 45 nuclear threats all ignored without consequence don't look good either.
It's even debatable how much of a threat Soviet Union really was at the height of its power because myth of its power was mostly manufactured and reinforced by USA that could use it as an excuse to funnel money to military industrial complex which otherwise would be hard sell with largely isolationistic public. It could be plainly seen when Soviet Union collapsed and USA was briefly aimless until it found new enemy to blow out of proportions in the form of terrorism. It was crap so they switched quickly to China. They no longer have a need for russia so they no longer are going to be doing marketing for putin.
Bully had a gun but he kept in in damp cellar. So the time to stomp him is now, even if there's some risk remaining, before he steals some money, to buy some solvent and oil to clean the gun he thought he won't ever need to use.
Some nukes might fly, and even a few might land but it's the best time there will ever be to turn russia to ex nuclear power. History doesn't stand in place. Thousand of nukes were already detonated on Earth. Few more from russia arsenal that might still actually launch and explode will make a very small difference. And retribution for using any nukes will be more terrible than what anyone can even imagine.
Poster accepts millions of people with their skin burned off just for a couple of square km in Eastern Ukraine. At this stage I feel that Ukrainians and Russian deserve each other. Please keep it an intra-slavic conflict!
I accept everything life brings me and have very little influence over it. I am accepting this only as much as I accepted millions dying in a pandemic. The fact that one did happen and other might happen has very little meaning to me.
> Please keep it an intra-slavic conflict!
Here's that pesky isolationism that had to always be circumvented in order for USA to dominate the globe the way it did and getting rich of this the way it did.
What makes you think russia has any intention to keep the conflict intra-Slavic with constant talk about multipolar world with them in one of the leading roles? Trying to cosplay it a little bit already with BRICS? Why the biggest hit to their ambitions since 2022 was them getting pushed out of Syria? How's that intra-Slavic? Domination over their self-appointed zone of influence is just a stepping stone as it always was.
I suggest you read “The Kindly Ones” by Littell. Or, for a smaller investment of time, “Just Revenge" by Dershowitz.
Putin is not even on the same axis as Hitler in terms of evil. I can only take your words to mean that you have no idea who Hitler was - making you, ironically, much closer to a Chamberlain than a Churchill.
The idea that intelligent people like you can draw such conclusions makes me unspeakably sad.
It reminds me of a passage in Stefan Zweig’s “The World of Yesterday” in which he is shocked to see how, weeks before WWI, peasants in a French village cinema turn into a war hungry mob the moment the German Kaiser appears on the screen.
Quote:
> At the moment when Kaiser Wilhelm appeared in the picture a storm of whistling and stamping broke out entirely spontaneously in the dark hall. Everyone was shouting and whistling, men, women and children all jeering as if they had been personally insulted. For a second the kindly people of Tours, who knew nothing about the world beyond what was in their newspapers, were out of their minds. I was horrified, deeply horrified. For I felt how far the poisoning of minds must have gone, after years and years of hate propaganda, if even here in a small provincial city the guileless citizens and soldiers had been roused to fury against the Kaiser and Germany—such fury that even a brief glimpse on the screen could provoke such an outburst. It was only a second, a single second. All was forgotten once other pictures were shown. The audience laughed heartily at the comedy that now followed, slapping their knees loudly with delight. Only a second, yes, but it showed me how easy it could be to whip up bad feeling on both sides at a moment of serious crisis, in spite of all attempts to restore understanding, in spite of our own efforts.
> The entire evening was spoilt for me. I couldn’t sleep. If it had happened in Paris, it would have made me just as uneasy, but it would not have shaken me so much. However, seeing how far hatred had eaten into the kindly, simple people here in the depths of the provinces made me shudder.
No development for you then. But at some age I guess you no longer need to learn anything new about the world. You'll be dead soon enough anyways. I guess for you it's perfectly sufficient to remain lisp-emacs programmer fascinated with dead philosophers, despots and dabbling in russian atrocity apologetics.
your comments betray some aged guy who hasnt lived, definitely has no children, and compensates by trying to be cool and provocative by having trivially controversial opinions. but even in your post-nuclear world, lisp and emacs still survive :)
The problem is that Ukraine has been trying to join NATO since the early 2000s. The answer was always the same: "we'll consider it". This wasn't going to change in 2014, when Ukraine had no working government and Russia invaded.
It's also a nonsense argument given Putin's aggression prompted NATO's largest expansion in a decade and arguably most-significant expansion since the 1990s.
So what? In a just world, there would no violence or threats whatsoever.
My point was that it was entirely predictable. If you point a gun at someone else, you are likely to get shot. Especially if they tell you repeatedly that they will shoot you if you point a gun at them.
I dont think Russia was threatened by Ukraine, but NATO and more specifically the US.
All of these analogies break down because there is no real world equivalent to a purely defense action like locking your doors.
The idea that NATO and the US especially only engage in defensive military actions is what requires an insane level of reality denial.
At any rate, Im not even trying to claim Russia has a moral high ground, just that the situation was completely predictable. At best, it was like putting your hand in a cage with the rabid dog. You can make a moral point that the dog shouldn't bite, but it is still idiotic to ignore the barking, snapping, and foaming at the mouth.
Now NATO and the US forced russia to invade a sovereign country and go to war with them, killing hundreds of thousands of people?
Also now somehow russia is not full of human people but has the intelligence of a rabid animal with a disease affecting its brain and somehow their borders were crossed with aggression?
I'm guessing there is no explanation or evidence coming for any of these claims because if you had it, you would have put it in your comment.
The analogy with the dog is that you know exactly what will happen, not the biology.
What claim do you want evidence for? That Russia was willing to invade Ukraine and kill hundreds of thousands? I think the evidence speaks for itself. They were willing to do it.
This is how I thought your reply would go unfortunately. I ask for evidence and you act like you don't even understand the concept, conveniently avoiding every absurd claim you just made.
> The idea that NATO and the US especially only engage in defensive military actions is what requires an insane level of reality denial.
Oh? I'd ask for evidence but I think you're just misunderstanding what NATO is. Just because the US is part of NATO does not mean that anything it does is automatically an action of NATO.
Believe what you want. The US global strategy and practice uses NATO bases to transfer and supply its wars, house it's nukes, and intercept retaliation.
> I dont think Russia was threatened by Ukraine, but NATO and more specifically the US.
Russia was threatened by EU actually. The initial 2013 crisis, Crimea / Donbas invasions happened as a consequence of EU association agreement which was pulling Ukraine away from Russia.
Russia isn't threatened in the sense that NATO will invade Russia proper - the nukes pretty much guarantee that can't happen. NATO / EU are "invading" what Putin considers to be Russia's sphere of influence. In case of Ukraine, Putin plans/planned to unite Russia, Ukraine and Belarus into one country - the creeping integration of Belarus serves as a template.
Well for one thing by not placing many troops or building bases despite all the ridiculous claims of NATO invasion I keep hearing about. Also there was a joint council and a treaty meant to hear Russia's complaints and to find ways to cooperate such as in terrorism. It was Russia's increasing push towards authoritarianism and imperialism which undercut relations.
What's there to be concerned about? Look at the number of NATO troops and equipment in Europe in the 1980s and 2013, look at the reduction of German tanks from 5000 to 200 and removal of all US tanks from Europe, removal of missiles, destruction of stockpiles, closure of bases, abolishment of conscription. The continuous and dramatic decline in all areas alone debunks the narrative that blames NATO. There is no way to look at the sharp decline of military might of Europe and claim any threat from it; it's just total nonsense. Until Russian invasion of Ukraine, most European countries funded their militaries far below the minimum level required to maintain existing capabilities. Europe was unilaterally disarming itself.
At the same time, since Putin came to power, Russia has been running massive army reforms and increasing the number of soldiers and equipment on European borders. With each passing day, European militaries were becoming weaker and Russian military grew stronger. Russian "security concerns" are nothing but a cover story for the eventual decision to take advantage of military balance gradually tipping in their favor.
It was extremely predictable with extreme hindsight bias only.
Most of the eastern Europe entered NATO without an incident. Baltics is closer to Russia's power centers (St. Petersburg and Moscow) than Ukraine is. Finland and Sweden entered NATO without incidents. Entering NATO was undeniably beneficial for these countries, since it has a very good safety record of protecting its members. Russia tends to invade countries which didn't yet make it to NATO.
When bush pushed to start the NATO process in 2007, the ambassador to Russia said it would lead to war and strategists agreed.
I agree NATO membership is beneficial for basically all its members. It provides a great deal of security to be under the US umbrella. NATO aspirations did not work out well for Georgia.
I dont really see what rights have to do with it. My point is that the current situation was entirely predictable, and in fact, it was widely predicted.
NATO is a defense pact. And your portrayal of NATO is ridiculous. NATO bent over backwards to satisfy Russian paranoia. NATO had barely any troops(just enough to say if you invade and kill them it's war) in the eastern NATO member countries until the full scale invasion of Ukraine.
NATO has never once been used in a defensive war, and is constantly used in wars of aggression, primarily by the US. It would be too exhausting to even type and link the various countries the US currently bombing and fighting in during 2024.
Ukraine wasn't joining NATO when Russia invaded in 2014 or 2022 when the full scale invasion happened. Ukraine wasn't even seeking NATO membership in 2014 prior to the Russian invasion. The goal of the post revolution of dignity government was stability and taking steps towards joining the EU(and even joining the EU was still seen as a difficult process that would at best take many years). Everyone including Russia knew that there was no chance of joining NATO anytime soon since France and Germany among other countries had and were still objecting. It's clear that the NATO excuse for the war is absurd bullshit
Killing half a million Ukrainians so that a country whose population is a third Russian doesn't vote for the Russian-friendly candidate over some Western-backed candidate who wants to exterminate and expel Russians,
Nowhere near a half a million have been killed.
The country identified as 17 percent Russian in the last census.
No one one from the Ukrainian side was going to, or is ever going to expel or exterminate anyone.
No one from Ukraine I talk to (including people very close to events at the time) gives any credence to the "coup" theory.
You obviously have no understanding of the Language Law, or what it actually does. And anyway it was passed in 2019 and so had nothing to do with events of 2014.
People in the West talk about the Ukraine situation all the time, from every angle, include quite obviously very pro-Russian angles. Not just online, but right there on major channels like Fox and CNN. There are no "allowed" or "disallowed" viewpoints, or any other repercussions or constraints.
Everything you're saying above is sheer lunacy, basically.
completely opposed to it, yes. im an ex refugee. i hate war and especially conscription. and super especially a pointless war that destroys the whole country and sets it back for generations to come.
ive also seen what western interefernce looks like when the west wants there to be a war. for example compare this to boris johnson torpedoing the peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in 2022
On 18 March 1992, all three sides signed the agreement; Alija Izetbegović for the Bosniaks, Radovan Karadžić for the Bosnian Serbs and Mate Boban for the Bosnian Croats. The plan had assigned each of the 109 municipalities to be divided amongst the three ethnic sides. The allocation of the municipalities was mostly based off the results of the 1991 population census that was completed a year before the signing of the agreement. The agreement had stipulated that the Bosniak and Serb cantons would each have covered 44% of the country's territory, with the Croat canton covering the remaining 12%.[3]
On 28 March 1992, after a meeting with US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann in Sarajevo, Izetbegović withdrew his signature and declared his opposition to any division of Bosnia. What was said and by whom remains unclear. Zimmermann denied that he told Izetbegović that if he withdrew his signature, the United States would grant recognition to Bosnia as an independent state. What is indisputable is that on the same day, Izetbegović withdrew his signature and renounced the agreement.[4][5]
Ukranians should take note that the Bosniak side came out even worse after that war, while the Serbian side today controls half of the country in a defacto almost independent state
> i hate war and especially conscription. and super especially a pointless war that destroys the whole country and sets it back for generations to come.
Good, I must assume then that you hate Putin for starting war, killing and bombing Ukrainians and surely campaign for Putin to pull back to the internationally recognized Russia borders, right?
correct but since we live on the same planet at the same time i demand for ukraine to never join nato or any other armed alliance, for ukraine to outlaw bandera nazis, for palestine and israel to be one democratic state of equal citizens regardless of ethnicity within historic palestine, for kosovo to be recognised again by the us and satelites as part of serbia (like ukraine does) etc
The "It was Boris" theory in regard to the Istanbul negotiations has been thoroughly investigated and debunked. But we know you will continue to cherish it anyway, no matter what the factual record actually says:
The Zimmerman-Izetbegović protocol is a bit murkier, and it doesn't help that the WP section you cite contains unsourced speculation. However it does seem to have been a genuine blunder from the US side.
That doesn't mean "the West wanted there to be a war", though, and I think that's a very naive and misinformed way of looking at the world. For one thing, it objectively wasn't true in that situation, as the EC and Canada, i.e. a solid majority share of "the West" were solidly behind the agreement. So right there, that perspective turns to mush.
It also essentially ignores (like most of these "torpedo" theories) the agency of local actors. And as such, it reflects an ironically imperial attitude toward the world.
The main reason the Lisbon Agreement failed was that Izetbegović was against it. So fundamentally it was his blunder to make. The US seems to have added to that blunder, most likely by not recognizing the (rather cold-blooded) intent of the Serbs to actually start a war if independence was declared and recognized.
But that doesn't mean "the US simply wants war". Rather, it's just another indication of what has been its primary character flaw for most of its existence since it became a world power: that it just assumes the rest of the world will see things the way it does, and go along with it.
Lastly (and back to cold-bloodedness), let's not forget that the failure of the Lisbon Agreement did not, by itself, cause those SDS snipers to climb to the top of the Holiday Inn in Sarajavo and start shooting into the crowd of peaceful demonstrators below on April 5th, killing 6, which was the actual kinetic trigger of the war. Or to cause the Serbian side to start engaging in massacres in outlying areas shortly thereafter.
In short - the US/West are often stupid/bad; yes. Some of its factions (like Cheney-Wolfowitz and now Trump-Musk apparently) do seem to genuinely want war. But "the West" does not, and most of the actors who manage to grab the steering wheel for long enough to have an impact plainly do not. Thinking that they do is just childish, and won't get you anywhere.
oh boy you want to sound confident but really you have no idea what you are talking about. lol at the sds snipers being cause of war. war in yugoslavia was already one year in by the time it started happening in bosnia. for objectivity reasons when talking about catalysts for the war you should also read about the wedding attack in sarajavo that happened several weeks prior to the sniper event. anyway if you are ukranian, pray that the peace agreement your country signs doesnt result in a type of governing system that bosnia has
the war in bosnia is generally thought to have started due to an illegal independence referendum held at the start of march 1992. if you are ukranian think crimea. also it wasnt a bosnian-serbian war. bosnian is not the same as bosniak. a bosnian is a person from a bosnian region (sometimes also incorrectly referring to people from herzegovina) and not a side in the conflict. you can more correctly say that the war was about bosnians killing bosnians. a bosniak is a nationality, historically slavic muslim, from the region of former yugoslavia. also it was a bosniak/croatian/serbian war, a three side war. moreover it wasnt really a Serbia vs Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Croatia war, as in state vs state, but a civil war faught by people living in bosnia and herzegovina. today bosnia and herzegovina has 3 constituent nationalities: bosniaks, croats, serbs
For this argument to make any sense, Russia would have to be invading and murdering less enthusiastically without the Western support. Which is nonsense.
The US is currently pressuring the Ukranian government to lower the conscription age to 18. In Russia there does not seem to be any conscription at the moment. You make your own conclusion
Russia does not use conscription. All those troops volunteered to be there. At least that is what leader Vlad is claiming. Are you disagreeing with the Dear Leader?
The overwhelming majority are well paid volunteers. The topic of conscription is highly political in Russia. Paying them is a major cost of the war and limitation on manpower. The pro war faction has been pushing for conscription to enable a surge, but meaningful conscription has not occurred.
Yes yes, and if you think this is a senseless war that’ll instantly stop all future Russian aggression once it concludes in Russian favor, like trustworthy Putin has always promised, you can join the Russian army as a foreigner and help! Here’s some information to get you started:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/20/moscow-to-open-mil...
It’s a multicultural affair, Nepalese, Ethiopians, North Koreans, Indians, a real who’s who of the most privileged individuals lending a hand in this noble pursuit of saving Ukrainians from themselves. Unsure? Donate to Russian units today, they need vehicles, drones, and tourniquets. We officially don’t need help, the SMO is going great, but every bit helps! Put your money where your mouth is and help end the war!
Can’t do that? Assist the Russian psy-ops by repeating Russian talking points online to nudge your government to help us subjugate a people like it’s 1700! Don’t delay, start today!
Your response comes across as racist even if you did not intend it that way. Very much a "us civilized noble Europeans vs those Asiatic / brown savages" vibe.
I don't blame them. That's why it would have been better to accept the Istanbul agreement while Ukraine had the upper hand. Naftali Bennett (hardly opposed to wars in principle) said that this agreement was sabotaged by the U.S., but he walked back that statement later.
I do blame Ukraine for not holding elections and finding out what people really want.
What's hard to understand? It's Russian financed propaganda, with courier services provided by the far right and far left. The far right happens to be in control of the Republican party at the moment, so we hear more if it with that spin.
Because it is a silly rule. These kind of wars drag on for 10 years. What if the population no longer wants it? Should they have another Maidan revolution?
The last boat used for this stunt was Chinese, this one is registered in the Cook Islands. This is already happening.
There is no way out of the Baltic Sea without crossing the territorial sea of either Sweden or Denmark. Countries have full jurisdiction in those, cutting cables on purpose is at least a criminal act, if not terrorism. There's no problem handling this, even if you're fully playing by the books.
Russia would then need to switch to ships running only to Kaliningrad, which makes it even more obvious that it's an act of war.
> There is no way out of the Baltic Sea without crossing the territorial sea of either Sweden or Denmark. Countries have full jurisdiction in those [...]
I don't think it's as clear cut. Transit passage through straits is governed by special provisions in the UNCLOS; with a few exceptions, states can't just board vessels.
What could further complicate matters here is if infrastructure of states A and B is damaged, but a vessel leaves the sea through a strait bordering states C and D.
That's obviously only the theory, and it's unfortunately not like there is broad international consensus on matters of territoriality at sea at this point.
I don't think there are many penalties for breaking the international law. Clearly, in the environment where Europe's adversaries are flagrantly breaking it on the daily basis, keeping to it meticulously would be foolish and dangerous.
Just like pacifism, abiding by the international law in this case will only serve to embolden the totalitarian regimes, which neither desire peace, nor obey the law.
I think if you wanted to bring up meaningful words, those were not the best examples to give. In the recent years, somewhere amongst the endless nuclear threat screeching and the ignored ICC arrest warrants, they have lost a lot of meaning. The declaration of war is a pretty good example of that, actually, being an outdated and withered concept.
I'm simply pointing out that words do not matter as much, willingness to do something, to respond, to defend yourself, that's what matters. I'm not ignoring the value of laws, and rules, and regulations, but they clearly are not an ironclad defense. Just like Article 5 isn't.
Every nation uses novel words every time, to avoid parallels. In fact ambassadors have to research every historical speech when a president wants to coin a new term. It’s not rare we hear “He said […], a term not used since [last scuffle between countries]”, journalists do notice.
US has Guantanamo and they don’t call them prisoners of wars (PoW). Russia has special military operations. Australia doesn’t keep their illegal immigrants in detention centers but in “administrative residences”.
So declarations of war are very much not outdated, insofar as everyone _avoids_ those terms.
> declarations of war are very much not outdated, insofar as everyone _avoids_ those terms
One, sure, declarations of war aren’t academically outdated. By that measure neither are colonialism or chattel slavery, which are also avoided in modern speechwriting.
Two, we absolutely say we’re going to war with each other. We just don’t formally declare it. Declarations of war are obsolete, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone serious in government or international relations who claims otherwise.
> UNCLOS is ultimately just words, just like the Geneva convention, a formal declaration of war, a country's nuclear doctrine
UNCLOS is being ignored by China. The Geneva Conventions have been ignored by every current, former and emerging superpower, as well as several regional powers--again, without consequence. Nobody declares war. And Putin has been amending his nuclear doctrine by the hour, often with false starts.
Would I prefer these were law? Absolutely. Must I blind myself to the fact that they aren't? No.
> ways of responding to some UNCLOS violations while continuing to adhere to it
Sure. It's still, ultimately, a unilateraly rewriting of the terms. Something states can do in international law that individuals can't in a nation with the rule of law.
> because some states are violating it doesn't mean that we should throw the entire thing overboard entirely
Nobody is suggesting that. My point is we should be more open to such rewritings given they're commonly taking place. It doesn't make sense for Europe to treat UNCLOS as binding law when Russia, China and hell America treat is as nice-to-have guidelines.
International agreements were treated as law in the post-WWII era. That era ended some time after the fall of the Soviet Union. Slowly. Then suddenly.
They're now closer to LOIs. Some countries are realising this quickly. Others more slowly.
Trust is hard to earn and very easy to lose. The appropriate answer to somebody violating hard-won international laws and norms isn't to just also start violating them.
Laws are for participants who willingly obey them. If they don't they automatically shouldn't be covered by them. There might be separate subset of laws on how to treat them but they cannot be treated the same as conforming entities.
You have freedom but if you do a crime your right to freedom is void. Now you have right to get punished.
Not sure what to call a rule that immediately stops applying to any involved party as soon as one violates it, but "law" isn't a word that comes to mind.
Our usual understanding of law has an enforcement mechanism of the nation on individuals, not voluntary agreements sovereign nations enforce on each other.
Well then, maybe Russia is within its rights to punch some of these strawmen so that their heads fall off?
Unilaterally claiming more territorial waters and boarding ships is cool and all. Having a Russian Navy destroyer follow one of these ships and greet the boarding party would also be kinda cool.
> What about if Russia switch to just using Chinese boats as a proxy?
Beijing has no interest in this. If anything, it has an interest in becoming one of Russia’s sole buyers.
> you have to have a rule that says we can board any ship we feel like and that's super problematic
Why? China is literally doing this right now outside its territorial waters. It’s fine. America would too, if foreign trawlers started cutting its lines. Again, if one person is playing by restrictions everyone else has already abandoned, it’s not difficult to conclude who’s the sucker at the table.
It's highly unsociable to ignore international law and agreements just because they're not convenient.
Classic American view point. Win at all costs, ignore the rules yourself but use another countries lack of adherence as an excuse to invade/bomb them.
You really think this is how we get a peaceful and civilised world order? You think this builds trust? Moral leadership? Long term reputation? Relationships?
Ridiculous. Sorry to be controversial but breaking international law should be avoided at almost any cost.
I guess one man's "sucker at the table" is another man's "gentleman who plays by the rules, and can be trusted"
> unsociable to ignore international law and agreements just because they're not convenient
My entire point is this is already the status quo. Nobody—other than Europe—is following the post-WWII rules anymore. There is a new set of conventions being de facto agreed to, and they will be set by the players actually at the table.
Any punishment that involves breaking the same law to administer isn't the correct one. It infers no superiority and just kicks off the race to the bottom.
I’m sure Putin would love it if the west continued to turn the other cheek.
No, if your point is reasonable, it still doesn’t apply when dealing with a psychopath. Who TF cares about moral superiority in the face of an existential threat?
If moral superiority is so important, let Putin lead with it.
in peacetime. It's looking like right now isn't peacetime. When a country is breaking every peacetime rule to conquer its neighbors and not-even-neighbors, the rules saying you can't, become super problematic as they'll be weaponized like everything else.
I started with PHP... 4.3... 20 years ago. And that was just the beginning. Java is for peacenicks.
Alas, I still don't have a single tank to my name, so it's not me that will be doing the shooting. Or even deciding to shoot.
At 45 years I already lived too long and seen too much. I don't mind universe giving me its best shot at mythical thermonuclear war. I fully expect it to be pathetic.
It's an act of war, and invading neighbouring countries is certainly an act of war. Nobody said all acts of war are identical, stop shadow boxing against invented positions nobody holds.
I wasn't aware that it has been confirmed that the Ukrainian government is behind the nord stream pipeline sabotage. Do you have any reputable sources?
Regardless, "country A sabotaged infrastructure owned by country B" doesn't automatically mean "countries A and B are at war", it's not that simple. But when acts of war happen repeatedly between countries in an area, it's a sign that the area isn't exactly in a time of peace.
While I fully agree with your point, and I absolutely _despise_ what Russia is doing, it's pretty well agreed by this point that it was Ukraine that sabotaged Nord Stream.
There was a pretty detailed breakdown by a dutch newspaper that even identified the Ukrainian commandos that did it. And they even have an arrest warrant on the name of one of the suspects.
And let's be honest here, Ukraine benefits the most from that sabotage.
But from a realpolitik point of view, Russia must somehow be slapped for these sabotage acts.
We tried that. This is the 3rd incident in a couple of months. We should just let Russia sever all the cables and pipelines in the Baltic? I’m guessing you don’t live here
I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. Breaking what law exactly? Finland is certainly within rights to capture a vessel that is actively destroying its infrastructure and has an open criminal investigation against it
There is an ENORMOUS gap between "Please don't..." and WWIII Nuke war.
And adhering to "Please don't..." is rightly seen by bullies and authoritarians of all stripes as "I won, I got away with it, I have permission to make even bigger offenses."
The law is the law only if it is backed up with enforcement. Only most of the people play by the rules. Those who don't will rapidly take everything if the law has no teeth. And the teeth must come into play rapidly and reliably when the "Please dont'..." fails to work.
International Law is not a law like city, county, state, national laws. There's no court and enforcement agency that can just enforce it. It's a set of agreements between countries. Enforcement (if any) is done by countries based on the goals of those countries. There's no sense of honor here. Yes breaking international law to punish others breaking international law happens, and is sometimes the only reasonable action to take.
It's the prisoner's dilemma. It's better to cooperate, but if the other party defects, your best option is to also defect (which serves as a motivator to renew the cooperation).
The point in having the International Agreements is indeed to honor it.
But only as long and as fully as is possible in the real world
When bad actors deliberately refuse to live within the agreements, e.g., Putin, who has broken nearly EVERY agreement he signed, there are only two choices. Push back with force, or surrender.
At the end of the day, the agreements work to prevent war, but only so long as everyone agrees to be bound by them. When one party unilaterally decides to break out and try to take territory and rule by deception and force, if we fail to respond, the agreements all become moot; the facts on the ground will be that the one who broke the agreements owns and rules everything.
It's brutal, but the agreements exist only as long as everyone follows them.
Moreover there is an entire body of international law and established practice of proportional response. No, these are NOT necessarily "breaking international law".
Start with sanctions. Impound the ships, study the spy equipment, and sell them for scrap. Prosecute the ship operators (then trade them for our political prisoners they hold).
If that doesn't stop it, take proportional and escalating retaliatory measures. Perhaps start with cyber-attacks. Move to kinetic as necessary.
These are just rough outlines; experts in the area can make more refined suggestions.
Vladimir Lenin famously and concisely described the operational algorithm of every petty bully and global dictator:
— “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push.
If you find steel, you withdraw”
Just observe how Putin operates and it will within become instantly obvious that this is exactly how he operates. Obama took no significant forceful opposition when Putin invaded Crimea, and when Assad w/Russia's backing used chemical weapons in Syria. So Putin invaded Donbas, propped up Assad (until he no longer could), then attempted to obliterate the very idea of Ukraine. In contrast, Finland and Sweden joined NATO despite Putin's threats of nuclear war, and Putin then removed troops from near the Finnish border. Putin has threatened nuclear response to "red lines" in Ukraine and EU at least 45 times in in the past three years, and backed down every single time. There are decades of examples.
Attacking other countries' critical infrastructure is an act that could legitimately trigger a NATO Article 5 kinetic response.
Putin is pushing the edges to do as much damage as possible until he gets a response. Diplomacy means nothing; he has and will break every agreement whenever he sees it convenient. The ONLY response he will understand is force.
That does not mean "you touch a chip on my shoulder and we'll nuke you", it means attacking our (collective) infrastructure, committing open murder on our soil, attacking other countries, etc., etc., etc. will see a prompt forceful response that is somewhat proportional and imposes greater costs on Putin.
THAT is the only thing that will stop dictators like Putin and Xi.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers.
Appeasement is what Europe does when an aggressor comes knocking.
“Appeasement” is what saved the world from nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK was so afraid to be labeled an “appeaser” afterward that he kept the deal he made with Khrushchev secret.
“Appeasement” is such a fake lesson from WW2. Chamberlain’s mistake was not negotiating with Hitler. His mistake was that he let wishful thinking cloud his vision.
Churchill just did much better in understanding his enemy. In this particular case, with an enemy whose goal was the eradication of whole parts of the world population, the result was that negotiating made no sense. But to say this is the lesson from Munich and to apply this as a cookie cutter template to any dictator is barking mad. Even more so in the age of nuclear weapons.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t. We’re back to realpolitik.
Some people, especially conservatives, have loved this narrative for forever: The rules-based order is soft, weak, wishy-washy, ineffectual fantasy; and tough, hard, reality is 'realpolitik'. And everyone knows 'tough' beats 'weak'.
IMHO it rationalizes emotional drives we all have for aggression and, feeling threatened and scared, for anger; and it serves the anti-liberal social/political agenda (because somehow a rules-based order, or any mass, peaceful, beneficial cooperation by humans, is now 'liberal' fantasy). But that pisses me off because it distracts and undermines people doing the real work. It's a person who, while we're under attack, freaks out, satisfies those emotional drives, and disrupts the team with verbal hand grenades. It's lazy thinking, IMHO, leaving the hard work of solving the problem - and now servicing someone's emotional needs and cleaning up their mess - to others, who must have the courage to be calm under fire and the courage to do right and find success.
That narrative also does what Putin wants more than anything, the destruction of the rules-based order: A world based on democracy, human rights, and associated international rules makes it impossible for Putin to carry out his imperial desires. The democratic, human-rights-based countries are powerful, unified, prosperous - Putin can't hope to compete. So he's destroying that order without firing a shot at its power base, because he has found many inside those countries to help him, many unwittingly.
The rules-based order isn't dead (as the narrative has declared since its birth). It's not wishy-washy fantasy, it was created by who knew 'realpolitik' and warfare far better than anyone living ever will, unless we are very unlucky; your 'realpolitik' fantasy is the wishy-washy and ignorant side. The rules-based order is not weak or ineffectual; 'realpolitik' is weak and ineffectual; it can't achieve anything; it destroys freedom, lives, and prosperity at massive scales; war, it's outcome, is the worst scourage of humanity. The founders of the rules-based order created it in part because, after WWII, they thought another war with then-current technology could destroy civilization - that was the technology of the 1940s. The rules-based order has been arguably the most powerful force ever in international relations, creating undreamt-of freedom, prosperity, and peace.
It was handed to us on a plate; you had to do nothing to build it, to create this incredible world out of the literal ashes of incredible destruction, hate, and violence - perhaps that's the problem, why some have a fantasy that they want to burn everything and return to living in ashes.
> it rationalizes emotional drives we all have for aggression and, feeling threatened and scared, for anger; and it serves the anti-liberal social/political agenda
It also accurately renders the actions of the U.S., Russia and China since the fall of the Soviet Union. I would love to move towards a rules-based world order. But the first step in doing so is admitting it isn't the status quo.
In a way, I agree: The US is one of the the biggest violators of the USLRBIO (US-led rules-based interntional order!), especially in Iraq but also, I think I read Serbia (1990s) wasn't legally scanctioned, and many other less significant situtations.
But at the same time, no institution, law, or legal system is 100%. The USLRBIO is overall extremely effective - almost no international wars (most have been civil wars), and the recent past being the most peaceful in (millennia?). It's an incredible feat of humanity and international affairs, and freedom exploded across the world, though since has retreated somewhat.
Also, beyond a doubt, military power is a necessary part of it. The reason Russia is violating it now in Ukraine is because others have not demonstrated convincingly that they will supply Ukraine with whatever is needed as long as it's needed (quite affordable given the relative size of economies of Ukraine's allies and Russia). If that was clear, Russia would have no choice.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t.
FWIW this perspective is currently known pejoratively, as "liberalism". As in "conservatives and liberals", not as in "liberty" or "liberal world order" - political labels are weird. Examples of this kind of party are the SPD (Germany), Labour (New Zealand) and the Democrats (USA).
Currently, left wing people are trying to make a big deal out of how liberals are (a) not actually left wing, but centrist at best, (b) generally incompetent (which is still preferable to the alternative most people have, mind you) and (c) enable fascism to take over, by attempting to follow the rules all the time, without updating the rules when fascists learn how to exploit them. (Hitler was given power according to the normal process, even though it should have already been obvious to everyone involved that it was a bad idea, because the most important thing is to follow the process, no matter where it leads)
>Hitler was given power according to the normal process, even though it should have already been obvious to everyone involved that it was a bad idea, because the most important thing is to follow the process, no matter where it leads)
Hitler’s rise was not a product of strict adherence to democratic norms. The Weimar authorities repeatedly broke with "normal process" including banning him from public speaking, suppressing Nazi media, outlawing the SA, relying on emergency decrees, and bypassing parliamentary governance. These anti-democratic measures not only failed to stop Hitler but eroded trust in democracy itself, creating the conditions for his eventual ascent.
Moreover, the KPD (the German Communist Party) played a significant role in destabilizing the Republic. They engaged in widespread political violence, targeting both Nazis and moderate leftists. They fractured anti-Nazi opposition by labelling the SPD as "social fascists" unworthy of cooperating with. The Nazi's Sturmabteilung was hardened primarily in response to KPD attacks through the Rotfrontkämpferbund (attacks that the authorities refused to prevent).
The left's infighting, combined with its own undemocratic tactics, significantly weakened any systemic resistance to fascism and helped paved the road Hitler later marched down.
> not as in "liberty" or "liberal world order" - political labels are weird
No, the core of the beef between leftists and liberals is over "liberty," or something that a liberal would call liberty and a leftist would not. Namely, property rights over financial assets. Liberals see these as a kind of liberty: "you own a farm, property rights over the farm connect the labor you do in upkeep and planting to the rewards you reap at harvest." Leftists argue that this might be a nice but temporary side effect and that the core purpose of financial assets is to ensure that rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are, thereby establishing, reinforcing, and perpetuating a class hierarchy where the people on the bottom must constantly pay to exist while the people on top constantly get paid to exist. They would tell a different story: "Bill Gates owns the farmland, you do all the work, you pay him everything he asks for, and if it's not enough he replaces you." In turn, the liberal would contend that market competition keeps this in check and the leftist would contend that ever concentrating capital interests ensure robust competition on the bottom and absent competition on the top, slowly crushing any market competition favorable to the farmer. At this point, if it hasn't happened already, the liberal will start lobbing horrific tales of leftists abusing farmers and the leftist will start lobbing horrific tales of property rights being used to abuse farmers and the conversation descends into "whose atrocities are bigger / worse / more relevant" discourse.
If you haven't seen this kind of infighting, it's not because the philosophical rift doesn't exist, it's because actual leftism has been outside the Overton window of popular discourse in the United States for the last 50-70 years. McCarthy's Red Scare was the first push, dissolution of the New Deal Coalition was the last. Class Warfare rhetoric was frowned upon by the liberal + conservative majority and kept out of polite company. Now that populism is back in fashion, leftists have been looking to change that, but they have been having less success than the populist right. Watch this space, though.
Every authoritarian measure instituted by Eastern Bloc countries was justified by the authorities as a necessary precaution against reactionaries/fascists. The Nazis similarly justified every act of inhumanity as a necessary preventative measure against the takeover of their country by the "Judeo-Bolshevism" of the murderous Soviet regime. The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Fully agreed. They won’t react until Russia invaded them. They somehow expect NATO to hold. While Trump and his Russian leaning politics, has said he might leave NATO.
Even if they don't have American nukes behind them?
Given what we've seen in Ukraine, I agree that Eastern European countries can likely take on Russia in conventional warfare. But that's not the only thing on the table.
Somehow I don't think that either UK or France would be willing to get into a nuclear exchange with Russia over Poland or Finland, especially considering the relative sizes of the nuclear arsenals involved, and then also how much less concentrated the Russian population is.
NATO without the US still has two member countries with nukes. That doesn't guarantee "NATO wins" but it does assure "Russia loses" if that particular cat comes out of the bag.
That’s assuming Trump means anything he says. An assumption that has a pretty poor track record.
As with the last time he was elected Trump has vehemently criticised a policy of his predecessor, and then immediately adopted the same policy as his own on being elected.
He did it over bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons, and he’s doing it over Ukraine now, making it clear he intends to continue fully supporting them, while also pushing for a huge increase in military spending. Both policies he and his party were adamantly against and did everything they could to undermine while in opposition.
Yes, he flipped on Ukraine, yes, it's a promising sign, no, it doesn't mean he can't flop on Ukraine.
The uncharitable scenario is that he's waiting for the RU bribe money to land before delivering -- and no one deserves charity less than this man. Remember when he stopped the Javelin shipments to Ukraine until such time as Zelensky could deliver dirt (real or manufactured) on Biden? This could be exactly like that, though at this time he presumably wants money not dirt.
The charitable scenarios is he’s realised that if he continues his commitment to drop support for Ukraine, he has zero bargaining power with Putin to negotiate a peace as promised.
How that wasn’t blindingly obvious from the start is a question, but not one he or his supporters actually care about because they couldn’t give a fig about Ukraine. It is entirely instrumental to his personal political advantage in the moment. Being utterly opposed to support for Ukraine was politically advantageous in opposition and supporting Ukraine to the hilt is now politically advantageous in power. That’s all that matters.
Chemical weapons in Syria are an informative parallel. Obama’s commitment to bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons was the worst policy ever from opposition, but actually bombing Syria for using Chemical weapons when they did so as soon as Trump gained power was an obvious necessity.
> Obama’s commitment to bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons was the worst policy ever from opposition
Mostly because Assad did use chemical weapons and Obama didn't bomb them. Arguably the fact that Obama backed down set the tone for the invasion of Crimea and the Donbas.
It took a while to confirm they’d used them and Obama made the mistake of asking Congress for authorisation to take out their chemical sites. Mitch McConnell blocked that, which is where Republican opposition to bombing Syria for having or using chemical weapons started.
Until they were in power of course, and Assad mistakenly assumed the Republican position on this was coherent and actually used chemical weapons again.
> ...but not one he or his supporters actually care about because they couldn’t give a fig about Ukraine.
His supporters absolutely would give a fig about Ukraine if Trump hadn't spent years sabotaging the GOP's historical positions on hostile authoritarians.
Oh absolutely, I say all this as a deeply dissolutions British conservative who wonders what the heck has happened to Republicanism. It’s not all down to Trump either, it started before him with McConnell and others as I pointed out in another comment.
You say that, and I recall a guy I know - a gun shop owner, die hard right winger, who in 2014 (i.e. a year before Trump even declared his candidacy) told me that he'd prefer to see Putin rather than Obama as US president, because he "knows how to run a proper Christian country".
Trump's election might be pretty bad for Russia after all. With Democrats already being committed to Ukraine and Republicans committed to Trump, the whole congress is ready for a pretty much unlimited (material) help to Ukraine if Trump wants it. And the threat of exactly that is necessary for successful peace negotiations, which in turn is what would score Trump major political points.
A lot of us in the US don't subscribe to the idea of "either you're with us or against us". I don't expect every single country in the world to drop everything they are doing and rush to help us invade whatever country we want to invade. I think it is ridiculous to say the EU is not with us because they don't blindly follow us everywhere.
In hindsight, it was a bad idea to invade Iraq anyway.
I think you may be misconstruing that comment. I suspect the idea is that the US invading Iraq was a violation of the international rules based order, and the EU was complicit in it.
Probably not, but that’s a separate—if fruitful—discussion. (Better candidates: NATO bombing Yugoslavia.)
What’s not debatable is that it has changed. Given how lightfootedly Europe is playing its hand, it’s surprising it’s taken this long to get Putin at their throats, Trump at their wallets and Xi gutting their industry.
Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO? If they were to abandon it, they would need to replace all their foreign strategy.
> Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO
Nobody joins a defensive alliance because it's cute. To the extent a cogent geopolitical message has been delivered, between Bush and Biden, it's that the international order has two castes: nuclear-armed states and everyone else.
From Europe, it looks like Russia has spent the last decade committing assassinations and sabotages in "the West", including using chemical weapons and causing civilian casualties, has shot down airliners and lied about it, invaded Crimea and lied about it, invaded Donbas and lied about it, then triggered the largest war in Europe since WWII after profligate lies about exercises.
> From Russia it looks like that Europe is at Putin's throat supplying enormous amount of armaments and military equipment to the Ukraine, and helping them with the intelligence.
The solution to this problem is straightforward. Putin can get out of Ukraine. All of it.
Simple to do, easy to achieve. No more Russians or North Koreans need to die.
> The solution to this problem is straightforward. Putin can get out of Ukraine.
Or Ukraine can surrender. "Simple" to do, "easy" to achieve, no more Ukrainians need to die.
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting Ukraine should surrender. I'm saying both Ukraine's surrender and the Russian pull-out are equally hard to do from their respective perspectives.
Ukraine limiting irrigation water to Crimea is peanuts compared to historical examples such as Free French Air Force participating in months of severe bombing of road and rail networks, bridges, railyards and other critical infrastructure of occupied France in preparation for the Normandy landings.
Or to to cite a more recent example, like the Russian armed forces mudering thousands of its "own" people in the siege of Mariupol (these being the 80 percent or so of the population who were Russian speaking, across the 5k-20k civilians estimated to have been killed). And damaging or destroying 90 percent of the buildings they used to live and work in.
I'm saying both Ukraine's surrender and the Russian pull-out are equally hard to do from their respective perspectives.
Which is completely ludicrous, of course.
For Ukraine, "surrender" means accepting permanent occupation and subjugation.
For Russia, it means they get egg on their face, basically. It will just go back to its corner and sulk for a while. Definitely very doable, as it's something they've done many times in the past.
There's simply no comparison.
And there's no symmetry at all between the two sides in this conflict.
I said: "from their respective perspectives" - that is, subjectively. You're talking about objective facts. I don't disagree with you, but you're also not (visibly) disagreeing with me: we're discussing two entirely different things. Objectively, an egg on your face is not comparable to subjugation. Subjectively, there might be people willing to die or kill at the mere sight of an egg - it would be dangerous to put an egg on their faces.
Drawing a caricature of a prophet and killing the author of the caricature is objectively not equivalent or comparable. Subjectively, though, you'll find people willing to kill the author and get killed or jailed for life for it.
People and societies have beliefs and values that differ. Without understanding the adversaries' beliefs, no agreement is possible. If no agreement is possible, the only way out is to eradicate one side. It might work out for Israel, but it is impossible in Ukraine.
In any case, I just want people to stop killing each other. I don't think one-sided demands (no matter how objectively justified and no matter which side they originate from) will help end it. Russians won't "just" "simply" pull out, and Ukraine won't "just" surrender.
There was no coup in Ukraine. Russian-backed president got over 100 protesters killed, ran away to Russia to avoid justice, and Ukrainian parliament held presidential elections to replace him.
The EU paid its "protection tax" by implicitly or explicitly endorsing any US actions. It's what always gave legitimacy to any US military action, what gave them the sheen of righteousness. The EU didn't "just watch", they did what they were expected to do.
Going forward, if Trump's anti-NATO agenda materializes, the US will have to find a different source of legitimacy for their actions or be painted as just an aggressor on the world stage.
What's the EU got to do with it? The EU is a glorified trade bloc, it doesn't work for the union on defense; that is handled by individual nations.
The UK did a similar amount to the US per capita in Iraq, even though we had less to gain and, frankly, it has punched above it's weight in practically every war going since well before the US even existed. Including Ukraine for example, where we were the first to arm them in advance of the invasion.
This comes across as american ignorance, I'm sorry to say.
China's ridiculous claims to waters outside it's legal territory are irrelevant to the issue of boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea. In that area there's no doubt that the vessels are sailing through waters owned by various NATO member states. Russia acknowledges this. But the vessels are exercising the right of innocent passage under the law of the sea.
NATO members can and should find some other pretext to stop, board, and search some of those Russian vessels. But if Russia doesn't back down and sends them with Navy escorts what then? It's worth thinking through the various escalation scenarios before acting.
It is not innocent passage if they attack the order and security of the coastal State. Article 19 and 21. Undersea cables are explicitly mentioned under 21.
By attack undersea cables the ship are no longer exercising the right of innocent passage, and thus is not protected under the law of the sea.
Lol, literally a few weeks ago we had NATO leaders talking about how "we need to find a way to shut down the passage of Russian oil" and now how convenient, we suddenly see that Russian taners are apparently doing things which conveniently give NATO a way to shut down the passage of Russian oil.
> if Russia doesn't back down and sends them with Navy escorts what then?
The whole point of doing it with a tanker was deniability. Doing it with a Russian-flagged ship makes it overt. The anti-escalation logic applies in both direction: Russia wants to sabotage as much as possible without triggering a huge escalation, because they're not sure they can win that either (and nobody could win a nuclear exchange!)
> boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea
The ship that was boarded, is registered in the Cook Islands (an associated state of New Zealand), owned and operated by a company in United Arab Emirates. And the ship's crew were Georgian and Indian.
> China's ridiculous claims to waters outside it's legal territory are irrelevant to the issue of boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea
China retains the right to board any ship in what it considers its sovereign territory, UNCLOS be damned. A similar reading by Finland would let it legally board any Russian ship transitting "its" straits.
Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t. We’re back to realpolitik.
Russian boats should be subject to boarding and searching when passing by Finnish and adjacent waters; for precedent, they can cite China claiming its sovereign waters include vastly adjacent waters to its own.
Russia flirted with Turkish airspace in 2015; Ankara shot it down [1]. Zero further provocations. You can’t appease a bully by lying prostrate. Even if the bully has big guns at home. We aren’t risking nuclear war by drawing clear lines, we’re inviting it by clumsily blurring them.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_sh...