Ukraine 11: Russian lies, guns, and money

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Yes, I accept that. I don’t expect the people in the war to moralize over their actions.

no, I’m not asking that either. I didn’t say anything about self-defense as a circumstance, I didn’t say what circumstances I thought made killing morally right or wrong (in fact I questioned if only these two categories are in existence), and I most certainly didn’t once use the word “always”. The only thing I say is that these are moral dilemmas that don’t have a straightforward and easy answer.

These are the kind of situations we would discuss in a philosophy or psychology class, which I had always been a sucker for so I can’t keep my mouth shut when such topic arises even though I absolutely should.  Because I suppose I must express myself particularly poorly and this thread is always incredibly emotionally heated. Which is no wonder. And it’s tragically sad that the ideas I used to enjoy learning about and discussing became the reality and everyday lives of people.

So perhaps it’s disrespectful or insensitive of me to theorize about decisions these people are forced to make and live with on an everyday basis. I can see and agree with that. But it’s not like I don’t empathize and sympathize with them, it’s not like I support the aggressor or condone its aggression. It just means that I don’t see the world in black and white and I think it’s a dangerous direction, as is the polarization we see today everyday everywhere. I believe in moderation, balance and 360 degree view, because I’m an incorrigible idealist who hates conflict in every way shape or form but loves to understand and analyze things. So I’m not the right person when hard and quick decisions/action or change is necessary. But it doesn’t make me a monster who has no sympathy for the suffering or stands with the dark side. And the fact that I feel the need to say this does not indicate only my character flaws, but also the point that we shouldn’t see the world in absolutes because only the sith do that. 

I think it is an important question and you are far from the first to ask it.  Ghandi believed that non-violent resistance to invasion was possible but recognized it would cost many lives.  

There is no “bloodless” way to oppose invasion.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

What do you suggest?

For starters, Russia as a player at the UN is over, forever. They should be kicked off the security council, and if that means they're kicked out entirely then so be it.

[Toth]

Listen up: I think I have a solution! All we need is a clone of Gorbachev and Hasselhoff with a parachute!

[Werthead]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

For starters, Russia as a player at the UN is over, forever. They should be kicked off the security council, and if that means they're kicked out entirely then so be it.

The problem is that there is no legal mechanism to accomplish this. Anything that could be done to remove them could be simply vetoed, either by Russia themselves or China (or both).

Also, whilst Russia are performing horrendous acts, it is important to maintain an open line of communication between nuclear states to prevent some kind of catastrophic misunderstanding resulting in millions more deaths. The United Nations, for all it's criticised, did provide a helpful forum for the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example.

[Zorral]

Ukraine and the end of history
Or perhaps it's a clash of civilizations
Matthew Yglesias

https://www.slowboring.com/p/ukraine-and-the-end-of-history?

This gives a sense of the direction:

Quote

 

Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History and the Last Man” and Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order” annoyed seemingly everyone when they came out in the early ‘90s. And yet, something about their core arguments was compelling enough that people still reference them both decades later.

I’ve been thinking about these books in the context of the war in Ukraine and the varied responses from countries around the world. The scale of the mobilization against Russia certainly has a “history is back” flavor. Fukuyama fans maintained throughout the Global War on Terror that his book never argued that historical events would stop occurring, but it did argue that a certain flavor of big picture ideological contestation was a thing of the past. And while the volume of sanctioning against Russia is certainly a big deal, it is meaningfully contested. Russia has a powerful ally in China, a durable relationship with India, and many countries around the world who just don’t think a showdown over Ukraine is worth the cost.

But many wealthy states do see Russian aggression against Ukraine as worth upending the global economy, and if you had to characterize these countries, I think the idea of “the West” — complete with the seemingly bizarre gerrymander that assigns Portugal to the same cultural group as Australia rather than Brazil — is useful. So score one for the Clash of Civilizations? Perhaps not.

The current resurgence of great power politics throws into relief the extent to which the civilizations thesis doesn’t hold up in detail. In particular, if you want to understand what’s going on in Ukraine, Fukuyama’s Neo-Hegelian view sheds much more light on the matter than framing the conflict as a war between Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

 

 

[Zorral]

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The United Nations, for all it's criticised, did provide a helpful forum for the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example.

That was 70+ years ago.  The world has changed in significant ways -- even war has -- though it remains as terrible as war ever was, is and shall be.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The problem is that there is no legal mechanism to accomplish this. Anything that could be done to remove them could be simply vetoed, either by Russia themselves or China (or both).

The UN cannot move forward with Russia as a veto power. 

[Toth]

*currently putting together a politics lesson about the UN*

Go on, keep arguing!

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

China is probably gritting its teeth in the background over this as being a completely unnecessary act of brutality, but I think publicly will make no move away from Russia. China's own human rights record is not amazing.

I expect the Chinese are pissed off by Russian incompetence.  They’d happily support an easy victory, but they’re less keen on supporting losers.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Ukraine and the end of history
Or perhaps it's a clash of civilizations
Matthew Yglesias

https://www.slowboring.com/p/ukraine-and-the-end-of-history?

This gives a sense of the direction:

 

I’m Orthodox.  I and most of the people I know who share my faith are opposed to Russian actions.  Russian actions are not a defense of “Orthodoxy”.  I still think Fukuyama’s thesis is poor.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The UN cannot move forward with Russia as a veto power. 

So, strip veto power from all permanent Security Council members.

[JGP]

Now you're cooking, Scot.

The US might leave though, or threaten to cut funding significantly.

 

 

edited, too much editing. brain isn't functioning properly, going to nap

[Werthead]

Looks like the Starstreak system has been deployed in Ukraine. The first time it took out a low-flying helicopter, which is fair enough but nothing special, but the second time it took out an Su-35S over Kharkiv which was deploying a full electronic warfare package. That's a pretty hefty prize (combined plane+payload is around $85 million) and quite impressive, given Starstreak's range is about 7,000 metres. It does demonstrate Starstreak's complete invulnerability to ECM though, which I think had not been tested in the field before.

Because the Su-57 and T-14 are not really operational (and in the wake of the sanctions, are less likely to ever become so), that's easily the most expensive and technologically sophisticated vehicle in the Russian inventory taken out by a dude on the ground.

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The UN cannot move forward with Russia as a veto power. 

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, strip veto power from all permanent Security Council members.

As Wert explained, there is no mechanism to do this.  Even amending the UN charter so there could be a mechanism to do this requires the ratification of all five permanent of the security council.  In terms of institutional design, the UN simply is not constructed to possibly kick out any of the five members.

However, to me the more important question is how would kicking Russia out of the UN solve anything?

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, strip veto power from all permanent Security Council members.

I'd add more permanent members and nuke the unilateral veto. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

As Wert explained, there is no mechanism to do this.  Even amending the UN charter so there could be a mechanism to do this requires the ratification of all five permanent of the security council.  In terms of institutional design, the UN simply is not constructed to possibly kick out any of the five members.

However, to me the more important question is how would kicking Russia out of the UN solve anything?

 

What does keeping them as a member solve either? 

[DMC]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

What does keeping them as a member solve either? 

I dunno, why are pointless questions pointless?

[Werthead]

If there was some way of kicking countries off the UN, I'd be concerned about Russia, China and a few other countries leaving to star their own comparable body, and then a bunch of other countries go with them and a load more have representation on both bodies, and then absolutely nothing gets done because you have two bodies replicating each other's work.

Everyone gives the UN shit because big-picture politics aren't really affected because of the vetos, but it's easy to forget the huge amount of low-key, low-visibility good work they do through disaster relief, famine relief, medical work and vaccine programmes (especially in Africa etc). Slicing up the UN would imperil all of that work for no good reason.

It's also a bizarre hypothetical. which is unlikely to unfold.

[mormont]

Yeah, the entire point of the UN is, everyone is tied together irrevocably, in particular the nuclear powers. The UN couldn't do any of the things it's intended to do, especially, y'know, preventing species annihilation in a nuclear holocaust, if countries like Russia could just be kicked out, or even lose their veto power. It's not a social club with membership conditional on good behaviour and playing nice with others. It's a venue for countries to talk.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What does keeping them as a member solve either? 

It gives them a voice.  That’s why I suggest amending the charter to strip all permanent members of veto power.  
 

@DMC,

Is there no mechanism in the UN Charter to amend the Charter?  Does the Charter explicitly give the 5 permanent members the power to veto any amendments?