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Is self defense immoral for nations or individuals?


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"Is self defense immoral ?" - the answer for individuals is clear, even if it is, I'd rather be immoral than dead.

Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission - quote by someone hardly known for the advocation of violence

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

The question is whether encouraging others to prepare for war, and then profiting from the weapons sales and/or the geopolitical outcome is.

The reality is Russia invaded Ukraine to make Ukraine be part of Russia, in order to plunder Ukraine of its resources, and when Ukraine resisted in self-defense, it began massacre, mass rape, plunder of everything not locked down and that destroyed. The further reality is that Putin-Russia says this should be done to all of us in Europe, the USA, anywhere that has democracy.  The further reality is some idiots even in our own nations are saying it's immoral of our nations to assist Ukraine's self-defense in order for Them to impose the same order that Putin's attempting to impose on Ukraine, and hypocritical of us /USA to object to this being done to Ukraine and to us.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

The question isn't whether self-defense is immoral (who the fuck would claim that?). The question is whether encouraging others to prepare for war, and then profiting from the weapons sales and/or the geopolitical outcome is.

Providing weapons isn't an innocuous decision. By doing so you not only choose a "side" in a conflict, but you also mechanically discourage peaceful resolution. Unless you also very strongly encourage a diplomatic solution, chances are the "other" side will then feel pressed to intervene. This is when -as a rule- claims that no peaceful resolution was possible anyway come in, and this is where I become excessively wary of such claims. Since there has to be peace in the end, the question becomes what the war will change, what it is supposed to achieve.

In the case we're actually talking about, I'm increasingly certain that the West is not merely helping Ukraine to defend itself. In fact, the rhetoric used in these very threads makes it rather obvious.

You only discourage peaceful resolution by enabling one side to resist aggression.  That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

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2 hours ago, DMC said:

The notion the Biden administration is or was in any was seeking this conflict is preposterous.  And the bill for the aid the US government is providing - plenty of it not weapons related btw - is being footed by the US taxpayer.  Hell, Biden's most recent funding request literally included just giving Ukraine and others money to buy more weapons.  

Really? because it seems like the State Dept has been escalating conflict all along.  And the Biden administration and MIC are parasitic on the US taxpayer, they're going to spend a shit ton of borrowed money, take their cut, and fuck the rest of us.   And if US troops get directly involved, so much the better for them, that allows for dramatically more spending and beak wetting.  Sure they'll have to break a few eggs, but it's mostly deplorables that get deployed anyway, from the elite's point of view.  

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30 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The reality is Russia invaded Ukraine to make Ukraine be part of Russia, in order to plunder Ukraine of its resources, and when Ukraine resisted in self-defense, it began massacre, mass rape, plunder of everything not locked down and that destroyed.

I have no idea why everyone in these threads is so utterly convinced that this is the whole story. Even my superficial readings/viewings present an incredibly complex story involving different regional cultures, oligarchs and interest groups, militias, trade deals, corruption, intelligence agencies, diplomatic attempts... etc.
Just trying to figure out Kolomoïsky's or Tymochenko's roles in all this requires hours of reading or viewing. And y'all act either like you know it all, or like it isn't important.
It's as if we're watching different channels. Except this is world news. And the combination of simplism and hyperbole is a bit disarming tbh, not to mention the constant strawmanning.

Anyway, I don't know where to start. But there's this show here called "under/beyond the maps" that tries to give viewers basic information about geo-political topics, and they did a special on Ukraine two months ago. It's easy to activate subtitles on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGsnhOixB2s
I found that, once you get the basics on Ukraine, it becomes a bit easier to understand the choices that were made by the EU and the US in the last decade (well, kinda).

1 hour ago, DMC said:

The notion the Biden administration is or was in any was seeking this conflict is preposterous.

Depends what one means by "seek." It actively prepared for it since day 1. But of course, they didn't create it.

The CIA was apparently quite active in Ukraine after 2014:
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html

And then, there's what was being said prior to the invasion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/politics/russia-ukraine-biden-military.html

Quote

“If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, U.S. and NATO military assistance — intelligence, cyber, anti-armor and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles — would ratchet up significantly,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”

He pointed to American support for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion there in the late 1970s and 1980s, before the rise of the Taliban. “The level of military support” for a Ukrainian insurgence, Admiral Stavridis said, “would make our efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union look puny by comparison.”

That's pretty low-hanging fruit (I'm not using analyses in French that go a bit further).
Two things are rather uncontroversial here, I believe:
- The US was initially preparing to build a Ukrainian insurgency after a Russian invasion.
- The US's objective is now to "humiliate" Russia (according to the analyses, as well as... well, facts).

Does this constitute "seeking" a war? Again, depends what you mean by "seeking." I guess it's always possible to claim that the US was merely helping the Ukrainians prepare against the threat of Russia, and that, if anything, the US sought to deter Russia from invading. That's rather naive, but ok.
That brings us to what went on in Eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Understanding what was going on can shed light on both the Russian invasion and US involvement. And that's where things get complex real fast. Lots of players, covert operations, neo-nazis (yes, that's always been true)...

Damn, I wanted to make this quick. Anyway, I agree that there actually isn't a "moral" question here. 

Full disclosure: the question for me isn't what happened in Ukraine, I know enough about history to have a vague idea of what was going on (though I have to say, Kolomoïsky may be a rather... unique character).
The question for me is why the fuck is almost everyone on this board convinced that this is a simple black and white story, because it's about opposing the EVIL EXPANSIONIST EMPIRE, because even if I do my best to simplify things, that's still a pretty ridiculous way to discuss this.

1 hour ago, DMC said:

And the bill for the aid the US government is providing - plenty of it not weapons related btw - is being footed by the US taxpayer.  Hell, Biden's most recent funding request literally included just giving Ukraine and others money to buy more weapons. 

Oh yes, obviously, it's the MIC that benefits, not regular Americans.
I thought that went without saying.

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4 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I have no idea why everyone in these threads is so utterly convinced that this is the whole story. Even my superficial readings/viewings present an incredibly complex story involving different regional cultures, oligarchs and interest groups, militias, trade deals, corruption, intelligence agencies, diplomatic attempts... etc.
Just trying to figure out Kolomoïsky's or Tymochenko's roles in all this requires hours of reading or viewing. And y'all act either like you know it all, or like it isn't important.
It's as if we're watching different channels. Except this is world news. And the combination of simplism and hyperbole is a bit disarming tbh, not to mention the constant strawmanning.

Anyway, I don't know where to start. But there's this show here called "under/beyond the maps" that tries to give viewers basic information about geo-political topics, and they did a special on Ukraine two months ago. It's easy to activate subtitles on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGsnhOixB2s
I found that, once you get the basics on Ukraine, it becomes a bit easier to understand the choices that were made by the EU and the US in the last decade (well, kinda).

Depends what one means by "seek." It actively prepared for it since day 1. But of course, they didn't create it.

The CIA was apparently quite active in Ukraine after 2014:
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html

And then, there's what was being said prior to the invasion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/politics/russia-ukraine-biden-military.html

That's pretty low-hanging fruit (I'm not using analyses in French that go a bit further).
Two things are rather uncontroversial here, I believe:
- The US was initially preparing to build a Ukrainian insurgency after a Russian invasion.
- The US's objective is now to "humiliate" Russia (according to the analyses, as well as... well, facts).

Does this constitute "seeking" a war? Again, depends what you mean by "seeking." I guess it's always possible to claim that the US was merely helping the Ukrainians prepare against the threat of Russia, and that, if anything, the US sought to deter Russia from invading. That's rather naive, but ok.
That brings us to what went on in Eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Understanding what was going on can shed light on both the Russian invasion and US involvement. And that's where things get complex real fast. Lots of players, covert operations, neo-nazis (yes, that's always been true)...

Damn, I wanted to make this quick. Anyway, I agree that there actually isn't a "moral" question here. 

Full disclosure: the question for me isn't what happened in Ukraine, I know enough about history to have a vague idea of what was going on (though I have to say, Kolomoïsky may be a rather... unique character).
The question for me is why the fuck is almost everyone on this board convinced that this is a simple black and white story, because it's about opposing the EVIL EXPANSIONIST EMPIRE, because even if I do my best to simplify things, that's still a pretty ridiculous way to discuss this.

Oh yes, obviously, it's the MIC that benefits, not regular Americans.
I thought that went without saying.

Sometimes conflicts are about shades of grey.

This is not one of them.

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12 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Sometimes conflicts are about shades of grey.

This is not one of them.

Putin is the bad guy, Ukrainians defending their families are the good guys.
That still leaves a lot of room for gray. And the gray is always what bites us in the ass in the end.

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

I have no idea why everyone in these threads is so utterly convinced that this is the whole story. Even my superficial readings/viewings present an incredibly complex story involving different regional cultures, oligarchs and interest groups, militias, trade deals, corruption, intelligence agencies, diplomatic attempts... etc.
Just trying to figure out Kolomoïsky's or Tymochenko's roles in all this requires hours of reading or viewing. And y'all act either like you know it all, or like it isn't important.
It's as if we're watching different channels. Except this is world news. And the combination of simplism and hyperbole is a bit disarming tbh, not to mention the constant strawmanning.

Anyway, I don't know where to start. But there's this show here called "under/beyond the maps" that tries to give viewers basic information about geo-political topics, and they did a special on Ukraine two months ago. It's easy to activate subtitles on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGsnhOixB2s
I found that, once you get the basics on Ukraine, it becomes a bit easier to understand the choices that were made by the EU and the US in the last decade (well, kinda).

Depends what one means by "seek." It actively prepared for it since day 1. But of course, they didn't create it.

The CIA was apparently quite active in Ukraine after 2014:
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html

And then, there's what was being said prior to the invasion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/politics/russia-ukraine-biden-military.html

That's pretty low-hanging fruit (I'm not using analyses in French that go a bit further).
Two things are rather uncontroversial here, I believe:
- The US was initially preparing to build a Ukrainian insurgency after a Russian invasion.
- The US's objective is now to "humiliate" Russia (according to the analyses, as well as... well, facts).

Does this constitute "seeking" a war? Again, depends what you mean by "seeking." I guess it's always possible to claim that the US was merely helping the Ukrainians prepare against the threat of Russia, and that, if anything, the US sought to deter Russia from invading. That's rather naive, but ok.
That brings us to what went on in Eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Understanding what was going on can shed light on both the Russian invasion and US involvement. And that's where things get complex real fast. Lots of players, covert operations, neo-nazis (yes, that's always been true)...

Damn, I wanted to make this quick. Anyway, I agree that there actually isn't a "moral" question here. 

Full disclosure: the question for me isn't what happened in Ukraine, I know enough about history to have a vague idea of what was going on (though I have to say, Kolomoïsky may be a rather... unique character).
The question for me is why the fuck is almost everyone on this board convinced that this is a simple black and white story, because it's about opposing the EVIL EXPANSIONIST EMPIRE, because even if I do my best to simplify things, that's still a pretty ridiculous way to discuss this.

Oh yes, obviously, it's the MIC that benefits, not regular Americans.
I thought that went without saying.

yeah i cant belive its controversial to say that things are more complicated than they seem,  thats a lesson we should  know by now.

pages and pages of discussion on the war, strategies and that kind of thing, but it seems superficial, like  why ignore the very complicated geopolitical context in favor of an easy narrative, that doesnt lend it self to the  critical thinking that is incredibly important right now.

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9 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

yeah i cant belive its controversial to say that things are more complicated than they seem, 

It’s a nice trick of the far right to pretend everything surrounding a particular topic is just too complicated to definitely say anything on.

I mean did Hitler intend to kill millions of Jews? 
He never gave an explicit order for it. And lots of people die in war.

Not saying there weren’t any Jews that were unnecessarily killed but perhaps the narrative that’s been propagated by the Nazi regimes enemies was embellished greatly. After all isn’t it normal for either side of a conflict to demonize the other?

Whose to say, things are just too complicated.

15 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

why ignore the very complicated geopolitical context in favor of an easy narrative, that doesnt lend it self to the  critical thinking that is incredibly important right now.

Saying Russia bad for wanting the to commit the genocide may be simple to say but it’s also right.

West good for helping prevent the genocide here.

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5 hours ago, DMC said:

Anyway, again, I don't think this topic merits much discussion at all.  The west is helping Ukraine because Putin invaded it -- oh and btw, they asked.  The village idiot comes to that conclusion before the vaunted "intellectual." 

 

I'm not sure why this simple point gets completely overlooked time and time again because it really does rob the state and people of Ukraine of their own agency as a sovereign state. 

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8 hours ago, Week said:

A more accurate, and difficult, question IMO -- is it immoral provide arms to someone in their self-defense against another? Further, is it immoral to do so while not putting yourself in danger and refusing to hear the argument that it might be/should be putting you in danger?

I agree in supporting, funding, and arming Ukraine though I do see some issues with that stance. Being honest, I'd say I put morality aside there because it *feels* justified.

 

7 hours ago, Rippounet said:

The question isn't whether self-defense is immoral (who the fuck would claim that?). The question is whether encouraging others to prepare for war, and then profiting from the weapons sales and/or the geopolitical outcome is.

I get what you both are saying here. But I think it's worth noting that the only reason there hasn't been direct NATO intervention is because of Nuclear weapons. It's  not some cynical ploy to sit back in safety. It's just a direct intervention would put the entire world in danger. 

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3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

That's pretty low-hanging fruit (I'm not using analyses in French that go a bit further).
Two things are rather uncontroversial here, I believe:
- The US was initially preparing to build a Ukrainian insurgency after a Russian invasion.
- The US's objective is now to "humiliate" Russia (according to the analyses, as well as... well, facts).

Well the question is whether the West ‘should’ be doing those things.

I’d argue and suspect others would too, that yes, absolutely they should. 
 

Arming and preparing Ukraine for an inevitable invasion, is totally the correct thing to do. Not doing so is basically washing your hands of the situation and leaving Ukraine to be invaded, slaughtered and taken over by a corrupt kleptocracy. It also sets a precedent that invading other countries is ok. 
 

On humiliating Russia, that’s a loaded term, but should Russia and the world be dissuaded from doing what Russia just did? Of course. So every action needs to be taken to prevent this happening again. 
 

Again the whole argument rests on this faulty idea that Putin has been driven to invade, that he wouldn’t do these things if the West had stayed out of it. Of course a grain of truth. Putin was perfectly fine with Ukrainian presidents being his puppets, and kicked off when that stopped happening, poisoning and murdering anyone who he didn’t have under his thumb. Not sure why that should be the accepted state of affairs. But Putin is the main actor here, he has decided to use physical violence to achieve his aims and that need to be stopped and others deterred.

The rest of these theories fit very neatly into how conspiracy theories tend to work. A grain of truth being promoted as the actual central reason for something. Weapons manufacturers profit from the war, therefore the war must be manufactured. That is the basic argument I’ve seen from the far left. It defies logic but probably fits pretty neatly into a lot of peoples worldview.

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4 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

 

I'm not sure why this simple point gets completely overlooked time and time again because it really does rob the state and people of Ukraine of their own agency as a sovereign state. 

It goes back to the point I made in the Ukraine thread- some left-wingers despise the West (their own nations) so much that they can't even conceive the idea that someone might willingly want to be an ally, to be a part of it, or to want their help against an anti-Western force.

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4 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

I'm not sure why this simple point gets completely overlooked time and time again because it really does rob the state and people of Ukraine of their own agency as a sovereign state. 

I can't speak for others, but I personally avoid that point because it can be (and is, I believe) used by Putin.
But pointing out the weakness of the argument would be seen as condoning Putin's actions, so I'd rather keep that discussion for when the conflict is coming to a close.

5 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

yeah i cant belive its controversial to say that things are more complicated than they seem,  thats a lesson we should  know by now.

pages and pages of discussion on the war, strategies and that kind of thing, but it seems superficial, like  why ignore the very complicated geopolitical context in favor of an easy narrative, that doesnt lend it self to the  critical thinking that is incredibly important right now.

Thank you. I've been asking myself the same questions for some time now.
As of now, I think the issue is precisely morality, i.e. this burning need to present the issue (and many others tbh) in a clear moral framework.

Hence, any attempt (whether it's misguided or not) to discuss Western strategies and responsibilities is automatically viewed as a defense of Putin.
The first analogy coming to my mind is my recent discussion about bullying with my 5-year old, i.e. how to react to the schoolyard bully. Pretty classic conversation that did mention the fact that kicking the bully in the crotch was wrong.
Well, in truth, it's not exactly wrong per se, and part of me would no doubt love that. But I would obviously be responsible for what would happen if I went in that direction. My priority isn't to punish the bully but to protect my kid and keep him out of trouble, therefore any self-defense that I advocate has to remain limited and proportionate.
To read some people here, I'm essentially condoning the bullying of my kid. Maybe even I love bullies (or this particular bully) or I hate my kid. :rolleyes:

It's not the best analogy, for obvious reasons, but the feeling I get in these threads is that any attempt to discuss the West's responsibilities aims at absolving Putin.
It really doesn't. When discussing a war, there is plenty of blame to go around, and I have no qualms about describing Putin as a rotting piece of shit. But I do hold the West to a higher standard than the thuggish autocrat of Russia.
My initial point was that it's fine to help a people self-defend against an aggressor, but any country that does that becomes responsible for ensuring said people's valiant defense doesn't end in a mushroom cloud.
That point hasn't changed. Pointing out the possible influence of the US MIC on US decision-making does not magically make Putin good. Nor does discussing CIA involvement in Eastern Ukraine mean that Putin would have magically become a pacifist. Nor does negotiating with Russia and throwing it a bone mean "surrendering" to it.
Gods, the simplism in these threads is disheartening.

I realized this morning that the reason I posted that Arte video above is that it's almost purely analytical. It's not free from flaws and biases, but it avoids moralistic points of view. Hence why I viewed it as a good starting point.
From where I sit, Scot opening a thread on the "morality of self-defense" is absurd. The French media I use carefully avoid moral discussions on geopolitics (though of course, politicians do not). As you say, focusing on morality robs people of critical thinking; if you can't avoid seeing a geopolitical issue through a black and white moral lense, then you lose the ability to realize when lines are crossed and/or when we move into gray territory. And to be clear, I think the West throwing dozens of billions worth of weapons and equipment is drawing us into gray territory at lightning speed.

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28 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I can't speak for others, but I personally avoid that point because it can be (and is, I believe) used by Putin.
But pointing out the weakness of the argument would be seen as condoning Putin's actions, so I'd rather keep that discussion for when the conflict is coming to a close.

Thank you. I've been asking myself the same questions for some time now.
As of now, I think the issue is precisely morality, i.e. this burning need to present the issue (and many others tbh) in a clear moral framework.

Hence, any attempt (whether it's misguided or not) to discuss Western strategies and responsibilities is automatically viewed as a defense of Putin.
The first analogy coming to my mind is my recent discussion about bullying with my 5-year old, i.e. how to react to the schoolyard bully. Pretty classic conversation that did mention the fact that kicking the bully in the crotch was wrong.
Well, in truth, it's not exactly wrong per se, and part of me would no doubt love that. But I would obviously be responsible for what would happen if I went in that direction. My priority isn't to punish the bully but to protect my kid and keep him out of trouble, therefore any self-defense that I advocate has to remain limited and proportionate.
To read some people here, I'm essentially condoning the bullying of my kid. Maybe even I love bullies (or this particular bully) or I hate my kid. :rolleyes:

It's not the best analogy, for obvious reasons, but the feeling I get in these threads is that any attempt to discuss the West's responsibilities aims at absolving Putin.
It really doesn't. When discussing a war, there is plenty of blame to go around, and I have no qualms about describing Putin as a rotting piece of shit. But I do hold the West to a higher standard than the thuggish autocrat of Russia.
My initial point was that it's fine to help a people self-defend against an aggressor, but any country that does that becomes responsible for ensuring said people's valiant defense doesn't end in a mushroom cloud.
That point hasn't changed. Pointing out the possible influence of the US MIC on US decision-making does not magically make Putin good. Nor does discussing CIA involvement in Eastern Ukraine mean that Putin would have magically become a pacifist. Nor does negotiating with Russia and throwing it a bone mean "surrendering" to it.
Gods, the simplism in these threads is disheartening.

I realized this morning that the reason I posted that Arte video above is that it's almost purely analytical. It's not free from flaws and biases, but it avoids moralistic points of view. Hence why I viewed it as a good starting point.
From where I sit, Scot opening a thread on the "morality of self-defense" is absurd. The French media I use carefully avoid moral discussions on geopolitics (though of course, politicians do not). As you say, focusing on morality robs people of critical thinking; if you can't avoid seeing a geopolitical issue through a black and white moral lense, then you lose the ability to realize when lines are crossed and/or when we move into gray territory. And to be clear, I think the West throwing dozens of billions worth of weapons and equipment is drawing us into gray territory at lightning speed.

Why would Ukraine, given what the Russians have done in Bucha, in Mariupol, in other parts of Ukraine be better off without the weapons the West has provided to facilitate its defense against the Russian invasion?  

Please do tell.

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53 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I can't speak for others, but I personally avoid that point because it can be (and is, I believe) used by Putin.
But pointing out the weakness of the argument would be seen as condoning Putin's actions, so I'd rather keep that discussion for when the conflict is coming to a close.

Putin also uses "useful idiots" like Chomsky, signatories of that letter, and many more who advocate for "peace" through capitulating and appeasing Russian acts of aggression, conquest, and assault on civilian populations. 

32 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why would Ukraine, given what the Russians have done in Bucha, in Mariupol, in other parts of Ukraine be better off without the weapons the West has provided to facilitate its defense against the Russian invasion?  

Please do tell.

"Peace in our time." 

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50 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Hence, any attempt (whether it's misguided or not) to discuss Western strategies and responsibilities is automatically viewed as a defense of Putin.

I don't think the accusation is one of defending Putin (although there some commentators out there who seem to align with the anti war position, that seem to actively parrot Russian talking points, Candace Owens or Glenn Greenwald basically repeating whatever the Kremlin wants them to say, whether its Chemical Labs or Ukrainian Nazis)

My main criticism of the general anti war position, left and right, is not that it defends Putin, but that it disregards Putin's stated aims and weighs the conflict too heavily as a responsibility of the West.

Putin's aim is quite simply to keep Ukraine in Russias orbit, as closely aligned as possible. Ideally that would be as a puppet state, with Putin in charge of whoever is running the country. He has been interfering in their elections in the past and would have preferred to do that I'm sure. He has openly stated that Ukraine and Russia are basically the same peoples, and that they should be together. He wants to control Ukraine. Any other explanation for the conflict is a misdirection. NATO expansion is a misdirection, it was never going to happen, but it is a signal that Ukraine has been moving westwards. The question is whether Russia has the right to prevent that, and if it can't stop it politically, should it be able to use violence to achieve its aim.

So the question is, what could the west have done to appease Putin if his goal is to control, or own Ukraine? What options are there other than let him?

Or how can you prevent him from invading if this is something he has decided to do. Maybe we could have done more to give him less confidence the West wouldn't intervene, that is true, but that really is quite difficult to achieve. There is a question as to whether the West would have just pushed Russia eastwards quicker towards China if we'd sanctioned heavier earlier when it might be better to try and keep it facing West. 

Either way, I think the main problem with the argument is that Putin wants Ukraine, there is no diplomatic settlement that doesn't involve him getting a bit of it, and how can any of us be ok with that in the short or long term.

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I have seen a sliver of arguments that run towards the idea that western countries (or some of them) are becoming more authoritarian and the last time this happened in resulted in Nazi Germany, who invaded Russia and its then-allies in the Soviet Union and killed almost 30 million people. So whilst NATO might be a defensive alliance in 2022 that would never dream of invading Russia, it's impossible to say the same of NATO in 2042 or 2062 or whatever, and Russia keeping a buffer with the west via Belarus and Ukraine is understandable.

That argument is thin because nobody can predict the future and also because Russia's defensive capabilities dwarf those of the USSR in 1941, particularly its nuclear weapons. Anyone invading Russia itself is first of all going to run into all the conventional problems that defeated every prior attempt and then into Russia's unbreachable weapons of last resort.

It also ignores the argument that Russia could easily have kept Ukraine in its orbit by working genuinely towards peaceful cooperation, giving Ukraine beneficial trade deals, working closely with it on perhaps modernising its own military more, and being a friendly neighbour rather than a somewhat indifferent one and then an increasingly unfriendly one.

It furthermore ignores the points made many times by Putin that he does not see Ukraine (and possibly all the other ex-Soviet nations, but Ukraine especially) as a viable independent country but a junior partner, "Little Russia," which must always be dominated by Russia. Some who follow that line of thought in the Russian political and media circles have even been pushing for invasions of friendly countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan because they believe it is not enough for countries to be allies or friends, they must be controlled.

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

My main criticism of the general anti war position, left and right, is not that it defends Putin, but that it disregards Putin's stated aims and weighs the conflict too heavily as a responsibility of the West.

[...]
So the question is, what could the west have done to appease Putin if his goal is to control, or own Ukraine? What options are there other than let him?

I hear what you're saying.

Nonetheless, one excellent point made by Chomsky -which isn't in itself pacifist- was about how "we" imagine the end of the war, and how this impacts Western policies/strategies.
The problem with the question you ask, is that arming the Ukrainians does not actually answer it. If you operate from the assumption that Putin's objective is to control or own Ukraine as a whole, and that nothing could be done to deter him, then it follows that the only way out of this war is either the annihilation of Russian military capabilities and/or the removal of Putin.
Neither are realistic objectives.
So, even if you disagree with Chomsky you will not escape his impeccable logic. Simply put, viewing Putin as the new Hitler is an intellectual dead end. Either there is an agreement that can be reached with him, or most of us will be dead before the year is over.
This is precisely why insisting on a moral approach to foreign politics is so dangerous. And honestly, everyone here should be perfectly aware of that, because we've seen it happen again and again. Every time US foreign policy has been dominated by moral absolutes, the results have been disastrous. There's a colossal amount of research on the topic, and yet the US is rushing right back into it, with the enthusiastic support of the liberal crowd (well, the liberals on this forum at least). The mind boggles.

The hard reality is that great powers' foreign policy is never moral. It cannot be, first because any moral absolute would quickly clash with their own national interests, and second because that would lead them to endless "foreign entanglements," endless wars and, eventually (in a nuclear world), mutually assured destruction.
I think the US has enough of the first two not to blindly jump into the third, uh?
So whether you like it or not, there will be a deal with Putin in the end, and it has to be a deal that allows Russia and him to save face - at least, if it is to be more than a cease-fire.
Another way to put it: we've learned the hard way that international relations cannot be dominated by moral views, because "punishing" a foreign nation for its "wrongdoings" does not lead to lasting peace. One may loathe an autocracy, but wishing its end is a delusion. If you're a leader (or an "intellectual" worth the name), you start by accepting and recognising the existence of the autocratic nation. It's not that you're condoning anything about it, but you must begin by acknowledging it exists and that it demands must be taken seriously. You can't operate from wishful thinking.
Thus, the point of the military confrontation isn't to annihilate or humiliate the enemy, but to make sure that it, in turn, accepts the fact that some of its demands are unrealistic and reviews its objectives.

I don't know Putin well - obviously. But I know enough not to take all public speeches/discourses seriously. A leader always has at least three audiences: his own "team" (the one who executes their orders), his people, and the world. One must be careful to identify the audience of any given speech. Especially with autocrats, I would think.
Point here is, though Putin may have hoped to conquer Ukraine as a whole, I'm really not sure he wanted to control it entirely for good. It's possible, but I find it more realistic to assume conquering Ukraine was a way to annex the Donbass and a few other Eastern regions.
And even if that wasn't his actual objective, we're almost certain it is now. From a realist perspective, that alone is a huge victory, one that was won by the Ukrainians a few weeks back already.
What the fighting is about now is -in theory- Donbass, i.e. how big the regions that will be granted some degree of local autonomy will be. And let's be blunt about it: there are regions in the East that will no longer really be part of Ukraine. Just as Russia's invasion solidified the pro-Western sentiment in the West, this in turn solidified the pro-Russian sentiment in the East. Ukraine was a divided country in the first place ; to dismiss the fact is another form of delusion.
That's where things could get dangerous. If Ukraine goes beyond self-defense, attempts to reconquer Donbass, and even starts toying with attacks on Russian soil... Then Putin will be forced into a corner. Hence why I've been rather jittery since the sinking of the Moskva, as I started wondering whether Biden's team knew what they were doing.

Anxieties aside, I would expect Ukraine and Russia's objectives to align soon. Realistically speaking, they should now be fighting for rational objectives.
Where I get uneasy is that, given the amount of weapons sent to Ukraine, the US now seems to be playing a rather dangerous game(as it so often does). Come to think of it, I hope this is just about the MIC making a few extra billions at the taxpayers' expense to put a bit more pressure on Putin, rather than the US actually adopting foolish "morally-based" objectives. And I hope all the new weapons don't affect everyone's objectives...
If it's all about putting pressure on Putin, negotiations should resume in earnest next week, since Russia apparently planned to end the war on May 8th. Hopefully it's all over within about a month.

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