this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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OMG YESSS ICE DRAGON COOL!!!
Anyways, you have the right idea about it being unjust that those who start wars of aggression reap benefits from starting them. That is why it is best for both Russia and Ukraine to resolve this using peaceful negotiations, as the reason why america is pouring military hardware into the latter is to bolster its own war of aggression against Russia motivated by cynical geopolitical interests.
This current conflict has a long and bloody history stretching way back from 2014 till now. It is called the "Russo-Ukranian war" and started with the Euromaidan incident when the EU used far right groups to antidemocratically depose a pro-Russian Ukranian president and plant someone who is more aligned with their agenda so that they could put pressure on Russia, as Russia was starting to get unfriendly towards the American trading bloc.
As such, the true nature of this conflict is an awful proxy war between Russia and NATO (america), where innocents suffer and the rich get richer.
Therefore, I think we would both agree that it is not good for america to send more weapons to Ukraine as this would be fulfilling america's own selfish geopolitical interests using the lives of innocent Ukranians.
Nice profile too btw
While in principle I do get the idea that a negotiated peace is preferable to a situation where the two parties in a conflict simply fight themselves until one side physically cannot, I do not see a way in which that can reasonably be done in the case of this conflict without one side being beaten militarily, because the goals of each side are not comparable. Russia has been trying to annex territory from Ukraine, but as far as I have seen, Ukraine has not sought to take land from Russia (if you take only the current phase of the conflict, one might suggest that they are seeking to retake Crimea, but as you yourself pointed out, the conflict itself has been ongoing for longer than the current large scale war has been going on, and as such, even if the Ukrainians managed to take it somehow, that would not represent the addition of new territory not in their possession before the conflict started). The problem this presents is that, if one were to negotiate a "white peace", that is to say, just put the border back to how it was before the conflict started, then that effectively represents Ukraine accomplishing pretty much all of its major goals and Russia none of it's own. As such, Russia has no particular reason to accept this, unless physically forced to by virtue of military defeat, which would kind of defeat the point of a negotiated settlement in the first place as that would simply represent a Ukrainian military victory anyway. But on the flipside, ceeding any of the disputed land to Russia represents a situation where Russia wins- maybe not anything like as big a win as they would like, but they would in that scenario have started a large scale war (regardless of how exactly the conflict itself began, Russia did take the step of turning it from what it was into a full-scale war, by invading Ukraine), and then ultimately gained territory from it, which is exactly the sort of precedent that we've already established needs to be avoided. What then, is left for such a settlement to be?
Just going to reply to myself here, as I did not finish what I was thinking earlier (I was on my lunch break and as I like to take time to reply to these things, I ran out of time, my apologies). In any case, what I was trying to say is, that I do not think a mutually satisfactory peace settlement can be achieved here, due to the sides involved having completely exclusive objectives. As such, I see three options for how the war could end:
I think most will agree that the last one is a bad outcome, due to the result of a long war with no resolution. I personally do not believe a Russian victory is acceptable either, for the reasons I talked about earlier, about rewarding aggression. Therefore, the only remaining option I see as plausible is a Ukrainian victory, therefore I take the stance that Ukraine should win. If Ukraine were to win, I further hold that it is preferable that they do so quickly and decisively, as it is better that the war be resolved with the minimum number of casualties, on either side, and a war of attrition does not do that by definition. Ukraine does not currently seem to have the resources required to achieve this, given that their current counter-offensive operations are proceeding relatively slowly. I therefore do support giving them those resources, and more, if they need it, and security guarantees afterwards- not because I am in any way in favor of war, but because I honestly believe that doing so is required in order for it end as quickly as realistically possible with the lowest chance of a similar war breaking out again soon after.
I imagine that you and others in this thread will disagree with the premises I take, or the conclusions I draw from them, but I hope at least that I've been able to make my reasoning clear on how I arrive at the conclusion that I do.
Why is it so critical to punish Russian aggression? It’s not like it’s the only aggressive state around, and definitely not the worst? Hasn’t the fact that not a single official responsible for the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen been punished a bigger factor in rewarding aggression?
Id say that those officials should be or should have been punished, the fact that they have not been is not a factor in how I feel that the current situation should be dealt with. "Other people got away with it" is not an excuse
I’m not saying it as an excuse, I’m trying to point out that aggression has been rewarded before this. You’re arguing that it is critical to punish Russia to send a message to other states that aggression won’t succeed but I’m saying that ship has already sailed
That would make it even more critical though, because it would not enough to reinforce the status quo, it would be necessary to demonstrate that things that once were considered acceptable on the international stage no longer are.
By that logic isn’t it far more critical to punish the truly bad actors? George bush killed way more people than have been killed in Russia's invasion. What message does it send that he’s allowed to roam free?
Oh I have no problem at all with having George Bush see justice for his actions, but this thread wasn't exactly about him, it was about the whole Ukraine/Russia situation. Were it a thread about some sort of trial or such for him, I'd absolutely be advocating turning him over.
Why is it more critical to punish Russia than to punish bad actors in the US?
Because Russia is fighting a war, with the resulting casualties and destruction, right now. The faster they are stopped, the less damage is ultimately caused. George Bush, for the example you used earlier, is not currently doing this. So while he's still someone who has gotten away with things he should not have done, time is less of essence in his case, at the moment. It's like asking why it is more critical to attempt to stop an attempted murder in progress, then it is to work on investigating the one that someone else committed last week. Again though, the relative importance of them is not really relevant here anyway, because the discussion was about Ukraine and Russia in the first place. There are a great many bad actors in the world, many of which have faced no justice for what they have done, to include quite a few in the US, yes, and one could ask that same question about any one of them, whenever one of the others comes up.
I guess what I’m trying to get across here is that it’s very hard for me to trust that any punishment of Russia will result in any long term change to behaviors of other bad actor if the nations doing the punishing are completely unable to apply justice across the board. It’s a lot easier for the US to send Bush to The Hague than Putin you know?
Other bad actors like Saudi or Azerbaijan are also currently being rewarded by the same people calling for punishment of Russia. What message does that send to future tyrants? That as long as you’re useful to the west we will ignore your crimes?