Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[blueingreen]

50 minutes ago, busdriver said:

My point is that anything less than a vasal state in Ukraine would have always been more than Russia could tolerate.  NATO expansion is irrelevant.

NATO expansion is very relevant to our current discussion of international relations and realism. You can't just ignore something as consequential as an expanding military alliance.

 

47 minutes ago, disgruntledemployee said:

Or maybe Putin can read too and used it as rationale to invade.  "Look, this book predicted it, I'm invading.

I don't think we're dealing with a self-fulfilling prophecy here. Countries have been invaded before. Scholars like Mearsheimer have sought to understand the dynamics between nations for as long as the concept of a nation has existed. We're talking about ideas of human nature that stretch back to Locke, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and even further.

Try to imagine if the roles were reversed: How would you expect the United States to act if Mexico or Canada was inching closer to joining a military alliance with Russia? Try not to insert your personal morals and biases into the equation, because realist theories of international relations don't do that. Wouldn't you agree that a military conflict of some kind might be within the realm of possibility?

Burying our heads in the sand and pretending that the West's actions don't have consequences is strange. It's a natural part of international relations, as inevitable as the laws of physics. I'm not absolving Russia of blame, but we need to stop acting so surprised when a world power acts in ways that world powers have done for thousands of years. If the US expected this war and went ahead with its foreign policy plans anyway, fine. I just want to know that this was calculated. IT doesn't seem like it was, though.  There might have been another way to go about this. Perhaps Ukraine could have gone the Moldova route. Who knows, though.

[blueingreen]

10 minutes ago, raimius said:

That the some in the CIA predicted Russia's actions does not justify Russia's actions.

People are really hung up on this. Nobody here who is arguing that the West should have seen this war coming is justifying Russia's actions. I can't speak for the others, but all I'm saying is that having foresight about a war this big should adjust the broader calculus of the West's international relations. 

[ViperMan]

11 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

So no one wants to address the CIA memo from 2008 predicting this? I guess Bill Burns must have been a Russian troll when he wrote it. 

nsplayer you still jerking off to your (NAV) quals? Wanna address the actual argument or just play high school “bro card” games?

thats what I thought. Typical liberal who wants to censor points of view counter to yours. 

I'll be your huckleberry (again).

The arguments on this board basically break down along two lines. Side one (my side) is that people like Steven Kotkin conclusively point to all the treaties and legal agreements between NATO countries, Russia, et al. These treaties go through things like "no restrictions on member states," "all nations have sovereign rights to join any alliance they choose," and so on and so forth. If you read what I've written before, or have a look at those interviews again, you'll be up to snuff as to what those legal agreements cover and what nations' rights and responsibilities are under them. Interestingly, Russia has signed all those documents - which is a fact in the world you have never addressed in all these long pages...but I digress. It's clear that doing that would not be conducive to your argument, so I don't expect a substantive or direct response to that bit of reality. Moving on.

Argument two (yours) breaks down along the lines of "there were secret meetings between Russia and the US and 'guarantees' were made that certain things wouldn't happen. Like Ukraine joining NATO. Like NATO moving eastward, etc.

Your argument is basically this: Party R telegraphed to us that they would beat up party U if X, Y, or Z thing happened. X, Y, or Z thing happened, therefore, party R goes and beats up party U. Hence it's justified because we knew about it ahead of time. Your argument is literally that someone told us they were going to do an immoral thing, then they did it, now it's justified? Like my favorite tennis player famously lamented: you cannot be serious.

Now, if X, Y, or Z constituted legitimate bases to conduct a beating, then sure. You could argue that party R is in the right. Problem is, there's nothing there. If you want your argument to hold water, you need to provide a moral justification as to why NATO moving eastward, or Ukraine joining NATO, provides Russia a moral basis to conduct an invasion of a sovereign nation. I won't hold my breath.

Anyway, to wrap this up. No one here is denying the 2008 memo or Bill Burns or whatever. It's just that being forewarned about an immoral thing doesn't invalidate that thing's immorality. i.e. your argument doesn't provide a moral basis for the invasion. You think predicting something or declaring something outright makes it moral. That's what and why you're wrong. You telling your wife to expect a beating when she gets home doesn't justify it. Your argument structure suggests you think it would. See, we're not arguing about facts. We're arguing about the moral basis for conducting this conflict. Your facts are there, they're just immaterial and irrelevant to the underlying question as to who is at fault, who has moral culpability, and who is in the wrong.

In essence, you're Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy.

 

[BashiChuni]

22 minutes ago, raimius said:

That the some in the CIA predicted Russia's actions does not justify Russia's actions.  

It was a warning from the cia about what our current path would lead to. 

[busdriver]

10 minutes ago, blueingreen said:

NATO expansion is very relevant to our current discussion of international relations and realism. You can't just ignore something as consequential as an expanding military alliance.

5 minutes ago, blueingreen said:

People are really hung up on this. Nobody here who is arguing that the West should have seen this war coming is justifying Russia's actions.

I'll try this another way.  What relationship between Russia and Ukraine do you think would have been acceptable enough to not result in a war?  

Also, yes people are actually saying America is at fault.

[ViperMan]

13 minutes ago, blueingreen said:

People are really hung up on this. Nobody here who is arguing that the West should have seen this war coming is justifying Russia's actions. I can't speak for the others, but all I'm saying is that having foresight about a war this big should adjust the broader calculus of the West's international relations. 

Well, yeah.

And no. Plenty, two at current count, of people here will not type sentences like "Russia is the aggressor," "Russia is wrong," "Russia should give back the parts of Ukraine they stole," etc. And that is precisely the structure of Bashi's argument. He absolutely thinks Russia is justified.

Gearhog, in his old age, best I can tell, has just discovered his inner pacifist. That's less concerning from a moral standpoint.

[blueingreen]

24 minutes ago, busdriver said:

I'll try this another way.  What relationship between Russia and Ukraine do you think would have been acceptable enough to not result in a war?  

Also, yes people are actually saying America is at fault.

I mentioned it very briefly at the end of my other post, but maybe an ideal outcome for Ukraine would have been something akin to Moldova: A neutral country with cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries. Not a perfect manual for success, and complicated by things like Crimea, whose analogous territory in Moldova would be something like Transnistria, but it seems better than the current status quo.

All this stuff is complex, I'm happy to concede that. I dated a Polish girl once who hated Ukraine as much as she hated Russia because of the Volhynia and Galicia massacres in WWII. History is closer than we think, and people carry these historical grudges for a long time.

I wouldn't say America is at fault for this war, because at the end of the day every sovereign nation, Russia included, determines their own course of action. I just think America / NATO / the West pursued certain policies that, when viewed through a realist lens of international relations, increased the likelihood of conflict. Not everyone subscribes to the realist school of international relations, so they might disagree with me! And that's fine. Hopefully my opinion doesn't render me an anti-American or something, though.

Edited February 21 by blueingreen
spelling

[blueingreen]

16 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

Well, yeah.

And no. Plenty, two at current count, of people here will not type sentences like "Russia is the aggressor," "Russia is wrong," "Russia should give back the parts of Ukraine they stole," etc. And that is precisely the structure of Bashi's argument. He absolutely thinks Russia is justified.

Gearhog, in his old age, best I can tell, has just discovered his inner pacifist. That's less concerning from a moral standpoint.

I think that's where the disconnect is. Some people are having a moral argument, others are talking about norms of international relations, and wires are getting crossed as a result. Russia is in the moral wrong here, but scholars like Mearsheimer would say they're acting "correctly", or in accordance with realist principles of international relations.

[BashiChuni]

25 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

Well, yeah.

And no. Plenty, two at current count, of people here will not type sentences like "Russia is the aggressor," "Russia is wrong," "Russia should give back the parts of Ukraine they stole," etc. And that is precisely the structure of Bashi's argument. He absolutely thinks Russia is justified.

Gearhog, in his old age, best I can tell, has just discovered his inner pacifist. That's less concerning from a moral standpoint.

i didn't necessarily say justified. i think we had a hand in fermenting this conflict...the memo in 2008 warned about it...and the 2014 coup which the US orchestrated in Ukraine certainly didn't help. also the biden involvement in ukraine is at the very least interesting...probably a lot more to that story. and the cia outposts along the Ukrainian border probably didn't do anything to calm tensions.

let me ask you this...why does the US not officially recognize Taiwan as it's own independent country? straight from wikipedia:

---

"Over the past four decades, the U.S. government's policy of deliberate ambiguity toward Taiwan has been viewed as critical to stabilizing cross-strait relations by seeking to deter the PRC from using force toward the region and dissuade Taiwan from seeking independence."

---

 

we know that if we recognize them, China gets mad and invades. so we are SMART and don't provoke the Chinese.

Now insert Ukraine and Russia into that statement. its intellectually dishonest to say putin invaded "unprovoked". he didn't. he was certainly provoked by western actions. justified? i'm not arguing that point...i'm simply stating we had a chance to avoid the whole mess in the first place.

Edited February 21 by BashiChuni

[ViperMan]

5 minutes ago, blueingreen said:

I think that's where the disconnect is. Some people are having a moral argument, others are talking about norms of international relations, and wires are getting crossed as a result. Russia is in the moral wrong here, but scholars like Mearsheimer would say they're acting "correctly", or in accordance with realist principles of international relations.

Fair enough. We probably are. This is the internet.

One test though: Try to get Bashi to write any one of the three example sentences above assigning culpability to Russia. I predict he won't do it.

[busdriver]

6 minutes ago, blueingreen said:

 something akin to Moldova: A neutral country with cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries. Not a perfect manual for success, and complicated by things like Crimea, whose analogous territory in Moldova would be something like Transnistria, but it seems better than the current status quo.

I would say the only example of an acceptable relationship is Belarus.  A puppet.  It would take active actions by the West to ensure that position for Ukraine.

Mearshimer blames the US for this war.

 

 

[gearhog]

4 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

Well, yeah.

And no. Plenty, two at current count, of people here will not type sentences like "Russia is the aggressor," "Russia is wrong," "Russia should give back the parts of Ukraine they stole," etc. And that is precisely the structure of Bashi's argument. He absolutely thinks Russia is justified.

Gearhog, in his old age, best I can tell, has just discovered his inner pacifist. That's less concerning from a moral standpoint.

No problem at all. Russia is an aggressor. Russia is wrong. I've said Russia sucks a hundred times in this thread. Search it. Beside the point.

You're confusing the word "justified" with "inevitable". American Pitbulls are horrible disgusting animals. One could say they all deserve to die. I don't believe that. They exist and they suck. When you see one, you respect it's existence as you would any other dangerous creature. There's always a chance they run down the street and randomly attack you. Maybe they don't. But if you approach the edge of their yard, you're gonna get their hackles up. Make and hold eye contact with it. Show your teeth. Raise your hand to it. When it leaps over the fence and annihilates you, you'll cry and complain that it was bad doggie and shouldn't have happened.

You can bitch all you want that attack wasn't justified, but you'd have to be a moron to not realize it was inevitable.

I'm not old. I'm 48. I could outrun you. 😄

And again: I'm a stickler for accuracy. Choose the correct words. I'm not a pacifist, I'm more of a reluctant warrior. War is sometimes necessary, but I prefer to avoid it.

[BashiChuni]

1 minute ago, ViperMan said:

Fair enough. We probably are. This is the internet.

One test though: Try to get Bashi to write any one of the three example sentences above assigning culpability to Russia. I predict he won't do it.

you guys are really obsessed with me. i feel loved.

[ViperMan]

3 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

i didn't necessarily say justified. i think we had a hand in fermenting this conflict...the memo in 2008 warned about it...and the 2014 coup which the US orchestrated in Ukraine certainly didn't help. also the biden involvement in ukraine is at the least interesting...probably a lot more to that story. and the cia outposts along the Ukrainian border probably didn't do anything to calm tensions.

let me ask you this...why does the US not officially recognize Taiwan as it's own independent country? straight from wikipedia:

---

"Over the past four decades, the U.S. government's policy of deliberate ambiguity toward Taiwan has been viewed as critical to stabilizing cross-strait relations by seeking to deter the PRC from using force toward the region and dissuade Taiwan from seeking independence."

---

we know that if we recognize them, China gets mad and invades. so we are SMART and don't provoke the Chinese.

Now insert Ukraine and Russia into that statement. its intellectually dishonest to say putin invaded "unprovoked". he didn't. he was certainly provoked by western actions. justified? i'm not arguing that point...i'm simply stating we had a chance to avoid the whole mess in the first place.

You address Russia's signatures on all the documents placing no membership restrictions on NATO countries first. And as part of your response, outline why they were allowed to lie on those documents and break those agreements when they invaded Ukraine. Finally, indicate why whatever reasoning you provide for the preceding is sufficient justification for their invasion.

I bet a dollar that in whatever reply you muster that you won't.

 

[BashiChuni]

1 minute ago, ViperMan said:

You address Russia's signatures on all the documents placing no membership restrictions on NATO countries first. And as part of your response, outline why they were allowed to lie on those documents and break those agreements when they invaded Ukraine. Finally, indicate why whatever reasoning you provide for the preceding is sufficient justification for their invasion.

I bet a dollar that in whatever reply you muster that you won't.

 

can you post the documents here for me to look at?

i'm not justifying the invasion i'm saying we provoked it (two different issues) and could have avoided it. again...the Burns "no means no" memo is my proof.

[BashiChuni]

2 hours ago, blueingreen said:

Mearsheimer is simply saying that the West should have expected Russia to act belligerently when NATO began expanding beyond their traditional sphere of influence, and that Ukraine would likely be the last straw. He was right about that and predicted it over a decade ago.

this is a fantastic post.

[ViperMan]

13 minutes ago, gearhog said:

No problem at all. Russia is an aggressor. Russia is wrong. I've said Russia sucks a hundred times in this thread. Search it. Beside the point.

You're confusing the word "justified" with "inevitable". American Pitbulls are horrible disgusting animals. One could say they all deserve to die. I don't believe that. They exist and they suck. When you see one, you respect it's existence as you would any other dangerous creature. There's always a chance they run down the street and randomly attack you. Maybe they don't. But if you approach the edge of their yard, you're gonna get their hackles up. Make and hold eye contact with it. Show your teeth. Raise your hand to it. When it leaps over the fence and annihilates you, you'll cry and complain that it was bad doggie and shouldn't have happened.

You can bitch all you want that attack wasn't justified, but you'd have to be a moron to not realize it was inevitable.

I'm not old. I'm 48. I could outrun you. 😄

And again: I'm a stickler for accuracy. Choose the correct words. I'm not a pacifist, I'm more of a reluctant warrior. War is sometimes necessary, but I prefer to avoid it.

The implicit contradiction in this post is delicious. The part where you simultaneously assign blame to Russia, and then only a few words later remove all agency from them by likening them to a dog is my favorite.

1 minute ago, BashiChuni said:

can you post the documents here for me to look at?

i'm not justifying the invasion i'm saying we provoked it (two different issues) and could have avoided it. again...the Burns "no means no" memo is my proof.

I wrote two extremely thoughtful responses to you ages ago that included them all. There a link to one a couple posts back. That one contains a link the the previous.

Say it. Say Russia is wrong.

[blueingreen]

17 minutes ago, busdriver said:

I would say the only example of an acceptable relationship is Belarus.  A puppet.  It would take active actions by the West to ensure that position for Ukraine.

Mearshimer blames the US for this war.

There's not much left for me to say, I just respectfully disagree. I think a Moldova situation is completely acceptable to the Russians, and they've indicated as much. NATO troops in Ukraine is a red line for them. Putin said he would accept a return to Ukraine's 1991 borders if the country remains neutral (Article), just like Moldova. World leaders don't lie as often as one might think. Again, I'm not casting any judgement, I'm just trying to deal with the cards we've currently been dealt.

As for Mearsheimer, his views are far more nuanced than simply saying "he blames the US". Blame isn't always a binary thing. America has not been an innocent bystander. We have involved ourselves in the domestic affairs of Ukraine for decades, for better or worse. It's possible to pursue foreign policies that can eventually lead to provocation. Denying this is, as I said before, putting our heads in the sand.

[BashiChuni]

13 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

The implicit contradiction in this post is delicious. The part where you simultaneously assign blame to Russia, and then only a few words later remove all agency from them by likening them to a dog is my favorite.

I wrote two extremely thoughtful responses to you ages ago that included them all. There a link to one a couple posts back. That one contains a link the the previous.

Say it. Say Russia is wrong.

I’ll go back and look. 
 

from a Russian perspective I would say they’re not wrong. From our side I’d say it was wrong to invade, but I understand why they did it. And how our actions provoked them to action. A war which would have been avoided. 
 

I can provoke you into punching me in the face. Does that mean you’re justified in doing it in the eyes of the cops?

[blueingreen]

17 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

The implicit contradiction in this post is delicious. The part where you simultaneously assign blame to Russia, and then only a few words later remove all agency from them by likening them to a dog is my favorite.

We're getting into philosophical territory here, but let's stick with the Russian Pitbull metaphor for a moment. Why would a dog acting in accordance with its nature absolve it of responsibility? When a Pitbull bites someone (which inevitably happens to many people every year), do we excuse it and say "Oh, you should have expected that! It's a Pitbull!" or do we put the dog down after it bites someone?

I've always viewed countries like people. After all, countries are large collections of people. And at the end of the day, people are animals. We have more self-control than a dog, but we're not always as perfectly rational as we think. Human nature and evolutionary biology are powerful stuff. Don't you think it's possible to criticize a dog, a person, or a country for acting in accordance with their nature and interests -- without absolving them of guilt?

[gearhog]

27 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

The implicit contradiction in this post is delicious. The part where you simultaneously assign blame to Russia, and then only a few words later remove all agency from them by likening them to a dog is my favorite.

In every post, you try to use words out of context while apparently not knowing what they mean.

Dogs do have an amount of ability to make choices and decisions about the way they behave and interact with their environment, thus: agency. When a dog attacks you, it still may have agency bu not justification. So you can blame the dog for doing something and understand why it did it.

There is no contradiction there whatsoever. Don't you ever get tired of attempting a "gotcha!" only to have it fail?

[tac airlifter]

5 hours ago, ViperMan said:

I'm not expressing an opinion that elections shouldn't ever be held. I'm expressing incredulity at the prospect of conducting a proper election under true, wartime conditions.

How do you suggest the 90% of displaced residents in any given bombed-out apartment building get to participate? Where even are they? Could they hope to participate? How would you ensure rampant fraud isn't injected by some sort of, you know, hostile counter-intelligence force? In short, all I'm saying is that the drum-beating about how Ukraine isn't a democracy because they're not holding elections right now is nakedly cynical. And that's coming from someone who is pretty cynical. Especially considering most of the "democratic advocacy" is coming from people who don't bat an eye about the legitimacy of Russian "elections."

Yea I don't bat an eye about Russian elections, I know they're BS since Russia is a dictatorship and we aren't their ally.  Standard is higher for someone who wants my money to purportedly fight for my values.  And the Afghans managed to hold elections, at our insistence, despite actual wartime conditions and an enemy who was actively conquering provinces.  
 

It's strange to hear from guys like nsplayr (who I personally like) about how UKR can't hold elections due to martial law and their constitution allows for that... and the constitution must always be followed of course.  But that standard of strict adherence to the constitution doesn't apply to our 2nd amendment.  Then I hear from other folks how elections would be so hard now, but we needed them in IZ/AFG because otherwise government is illegitimate.  And of course UKR must be given cluster bombs and allowed to strike deep into Moscow but God forbid we strike structures in Yemen that might have terrorist kids inside.  There's no logic to these inconsistencies.
 

My sense is the pro-UKR war crowd lacks consistent application of principals they espouse.  Which means they aren't principals, they're just feelings.  And I get it, an unjust thing happened to Ukraine and Putin sucks.  But damn dude, they have no path to victory.  Zelenskyy outlaws opposition parties and has indefinitely suspended elections.  He's asking for nukes.  His military is posting hundreds of videos of them killing unarmed surrendering Russian soldiers (which is a war crime if I do it).... oh and we're broke.  Time to negotiate peace and accept some territory lost.  Table it for future reacquisition, it can't be defended anymore.

 

[busdriver]

2 hours ago, blueingreen said:

There's not much left for me to say, I just respectfully disagree. I think a Moldova situation is completely acceptable to the Russians, and they've indicated as much.

Obviously we're not going to agree.  But I appreciate the level headed responses.

As to Moldova, I don't think that arrangement suffices if we're sticking to using the realist lens to analyze this.  I don't think that at all works for regional hegemony.  If Russia were a relatively democratic/honest participant in the global order, then I'd think different.  But an oligarchy/autocracy/whatever, nope.

I would think Moldova is next up after Ukraine actually.  Low probability at this point, but following the realist logic...

[BashiChuni]

Paris next right?!

[17D_guy]

Legit enjoyed catching up on this thread. Also got to ignore some trolls.