Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[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.

[blueingreen]

2 hours ago, busdriver said:

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...

Also appreciate the civility from you and others. But because I'm an IR theory nerd who studied this for years, I have to set the record straight here:

Realism doesn't concern itself with systems of government. The state is a "black box" under this theory, so whether it's an oligarchy like Russia or a constitutional republic like the USA, it makes no difference. They all deal with the same concerns and interests that motivate states to pursue certain actions in an anarchic international system of uncertainty. Regional hegemony only goes so far -- hence the "regional". Mearsheimer's work suggests that Russia would prefer a buffer zone between their sphere of influence and a competing sphere of influence like NATO's. So if we follow that realist internal logic, it would be acceptable for Ukraine and Moldova to remain neutral. Russia has said this before, but you could argue that they're lying I guess. As I mentioned before, it's slightly complicated by regions like Crimea and Transnistria, but you get the idea.

Realism isn't just about states wantonly invading others for hegemony's sake, it's more calculated than that. Russia has taken quite the beating against Ukraine, so even if they wanted to invade Moldova (which they don't), they would be very reluctant to act on those feelings.

[busdriver]

2 minutes ago, blueingreen said:

Realism doesn't concern itself with systems of government. .........................Regional hegemony only goes so far -- hence the "regional". 

Realism isn't just about states wantonly invading others for hegemony's sake, it's more calculated than that. Russia has taken quite the beating against Ukraine, so even if they wanted to invade Moldova (which they don't), they would be very reluctant to act on those feelings.

I guess I'm stepping outside the thing I said I'd stay inside.  Fair enough.  My point was about leverage and trust.

In that case, back to what defines regional.  In this case my point was leading towards a defensible land border.  Which would define the "region" as I'm thinking. 

[ViperMan]

6 hours ago, blueingreen said:

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?

Do birds fly? Do airplanes fly?

Do fish swim? Do submarines swim? Do boats swim?

Would you blame a shark for biting you? How about an apple for falling on your head?

In short, the question is ill-formed. Dog's don't have responsibility. Or am I to believe you'd charge a dog with the crime of biting and afford him a trial by a jury of his peers? Yeah, you put the dog down, but you don't blame the dog. You blame yourself for allowing a situation to develop wherein something inevitable was going to happen.

The metaphor breaks down because the words and concepts don't transfer. Yes, the dog bit someone. The dog did it. But the dog is not responsible in the same sense as you or I are for its actions. Look up the definition of responsibility. It doesn't mean only that somebody (or some thing) took an action. Responsibility is a concept that applies to entities which posses knowledge of right and wrong and then make a choice. It can't be applied to instinct-driven creatures ruled only by fear and hunger. FFS, let's at least agree on that.

Anyway, let's not get wrapped up about the metaphor. It's a distraction from the core point @gearhog tried to make, which was that Russia's attack was both inevitable and blameworthy. Exqueeze me? Baking powder? That's like blaming an apple for falling off a tree. The concepts of blame and inevitability don't go together. They can't co-exist. He stripped them of their agency while simultaneously faulting them for their actions. You can't do both of those things. He absolves them of their responsibility and agency by placing the blame on the US because we "provoked" them and then calls their resultant actions inevitable. It's blame transfer. Yeah, the dog metaphor is imperfect, but the underlying point was contradictory without reliance on the metaphor. It's these sorts of paradoxes in other peoples' positions which illustrate how shallow their analysis is.

[BashiChuni]

It’s not shallow analysis dude. I’m going back to the 1990s, putins speech in 2007, our cia memo in 2008, the US backed coup in 2014. 
 

the shallow analysis is the side which looks at Russia invading in 2022 and screams “Unprovoked invasion, we must defend Ukraine at all costs!” 
 

That side is viewing the invasion as a singular event and not considering the factors, actions, and consequences of multi national foreign policy which contributed to shaping Russian decision making. 
 

again I’ll ask…why does the US not recognize Taiwan as its own independent nation? Are we capitulating to China? Are we not letting Taiwan pursue what they want? Doesn’t Taiwan have the right to be its own independent country?

we are ambiguous because we know if we aren’t the Chinese might take Taiwan back by force. It’s the same calculus I’m overlaying on Ukraine. 

Edited Saturday at 11:39 AM by BashiChuni

[gearhog]

8 hours ago, ViperMan said:

Do birds fly? Do airplanes fly?

Do fish swim? Do submarines swim? Do boats swim?

Would you blame a shark for biting you? How about an apple for falling on your head?

In short, the question is ill-formed. Dog's don't have responsibility. Or am I to believe you'd charge a dog with the crime of biting and afford him a trial by a jury of his peers? Yeah, you put the dog down, but you don't blame the dog. You blame yourself for allowing a situation to develop wherein something inevitable was going to happen.

Boats? Airplanes? Apples? You're introducing irrelevant concepts to support an unclear point.

If the dog is at the edge of the yard snarling and you're standing opposite, if you're an adult with common sense, you know that if you approach it, it is going to attack. Not because it has a sense of moral responsibility, and not because it is a machine, but because you know that its nature, it's limited understanding of the world, training, and cause/effect conditioning will result in that dog's brain choosing an action. It is unable to justify its actions morally, but it does have agency. Apparently you have never owned a dog which somewhat explains your character. Dogs choose to behave and misbehave on a daily basis. They get in the garbage, they'll chew your sneakers, and they'll express regret. It's also inevitable that they'll do certain things depending on the conditions you create.

Instead, say it's a man named Vlad is at the edge of the yard glaring at you and you're standing opposite. Instead of snarling, he says to you "If you approach me or point a weapon at me, I'm going to punch you in the face." You say, "But sir, you can't do that, because choosing to do that is morally unjustifiable." To which he says, "I will punch you in the fkng face."

What a scumbag, a horrible man! It's unthinkable that he would choose a violent response. You have every right to approach him. So you do the thing he doesn't want you do to. He steps over the fence, breaks your nose. You're completely shocked. "This isn't Nam, this is bowling! There are rules!" He did the thing he said he was going to do! How could this have possibly happened?

In this case of the dog, it communicated a threat, and acted on it. It did so without understanding moral justification, but the result was blameworthy, and also inevitable.

In the case of the man, he communicated a threat, and acted on it. He did so without regard to moral justification, but the result was blameworthy, and still inevitable.

Edited Saturday at 01:55 PM by gearhog

[ViperMan]

3 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

It’s not shallow analysis dude. I’m going back to the 1990s, putins speech in 2007, our cia memo in 2008, the US backed coup in 2014. 

the shallow analysis is the side which looks at Russia invading in 2022 and screams “Unprovoked invasion, we must defend Ukraine at all costs!” 

That side is viewing the invasion as a singular event and not considering the factors, actions, and consequences of multi national foreign policy which contributed to shaping Russian decision making. 

again I’ll ask…why does the US not recognize Taiwan as its own independent nation? Are we capitulating to China? Are we not letting Taiwan pursue what they want? Doesn’t Taiwan have the right to be its own independent country?

we are ambiguous because we know if we aren’t the Chinese might take Taiwan back by force. It’s the same calculus I’m overlaying on Ukraine. 

The shallow point from that previous post was in reference to gearhog’s superficial acknowledgment that Russia was at fault. I know he doesn’t actually assign blame to Russia, just as he wouldn’t assign blame to anything else that was inevitable. His use of the term “inevitable” and retort to US “provocation” does all the lifting required to absolve Russia of blame and place it on the US/Ukraine. "It was our fault for approaching Russia. They warned us. The war is our fault." It’s a similar argument to yours, which is because something is predictable, or because someone told you they were going to do something, they are no longer accountable for their actions. That's a strange moral calculus...but I digress.

Your analysis is shallow because it doesn’t incorporate certain facts about the world. Namely, the three separate treaties (at least) Russia is violating by invading Ukraine. People on this board have made counter arguments or arguments that subsume facts you present which strengthen your argument (i.e. secret Russian warnings about NATO expansion eastward). In other words, they are arguing in good faith.

16 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

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.

You haven’t done the same. *See your own post from a couple pages back where you said you’d look at those treaties. Either you did and you decided to continue to ignore those facts, or you didn’t because you’re so ideologically bound to your argument that you don’t think it’s worth your time. Either way, it makes your argument shallow since you’re picking and choosing certain facts while sticking your head in the sand regarding others. Basically, your whole argument is weaponized ignorance.

Your second tactic is a variation on the same theme. Avoidance. *See where you just tried to change the subject to Taiwan, again.

17 hours 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.

I bet another dollar you (still) won’t acknowledge or talk about the violation of those treaties in any meaningful way. So far I’m 1 for 1. Going forward, I predict you’ll continue using one of those two strategies. Maybe after a post or two, but you’ll return to changing the subject to Taiwan or beating the drum about secret memos that predicted this would happen.

[tac airlifter]

Treaty violation is another fascinatingly inconsistent aspect of the pro-UKR war folks.  And I’m not referencing you Viper or any other posters here, we’re all just nobody’s chatting and I trust your opinions are honest and nuanced.  I’m talking the senior IR crowd.  Jake Sullivan talked a lot about that to justify Biden’s stalwart commitment to UKR funding, but he conveniently had a different rationale which allowed for ignoring international norms and treaties to invade Libya.  And Syria.  Traditional republicans are no better: Cheney is all about UKR support because we just can’t have countries invade each other without provocation!  Except Iraq 😂

I’m distrustful of inconsistencies and hypocrisy. 

[gearhog]

14 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

The shallow point from that previous post was in reference to gearhog’s superficial acknowledgment that Russia was at fault. I know he doesn’t actually assign blame to Russia, just as he wouldn’t assign blame to anything else that was inevitable. His use of the term “inevitable” and retort to US “provocation” does all the lifting required to absolve Russia of blame and place it on the US/Ukraine. "It was our fault for approaching Russia. They warned us. The war is our fault." It’s a similar argument to yours, which is because something is predictable, or because someone told you they were going to do something, they are no longer accountable for their actions. That's a strange moral calculus...but I digress.

You can argue to world's end that the fault lies with Russia. A Russian could argue to world's end that the fault lies with NATO. If you only view the disagreement through your personal subjective lens of morality, there is no resolution. Your problem is you only know one definition of "fault". You believe it always has a moral or ethical connotation. "Fault" can be neutral, as in legal cases. It can imply liability independent of moral justification.

Your perspective of the conflict is based purely upon subjective biases. You cannot comprehend the rationale for the invasion, therefore, the easiest way for your mind to cope with it is assigning it to "evil." That's how we always characterize our opponents when we cannot understand or don't want to explain the underlying reasons, causes, or conditions for their behavior.

Your other problem is you seem to believe moral justification is one-sided. You'll spend the rest of the day here arguing that there are moral reasons to continue this conflict, but will never acknowledge there are moral reasons to cease the killing. Why? Because you're not directly affected by the consequences. The most serious sacrifices aren't yours, so that makes it incredibly easy for you to urge others to fight for your beliefs. You'll say the Ukrainians want to fight until the last man. That BS, and it's an unreasonable assumption. There are two ways to resolve a disagreement, especially a moral one: finding a compromise or application of force. As I said, you're quite happy for others to apply force so you don't have to make a compromise.

But when it finally becomes undeniably apparent to you (well after everyone else) that Ukraine has less fuel in the tank than Russia, you'll realize that to continue the application of force in lieu of compromise, eventually, your pink body or that of someone you know will have to be on the front lines. You ignored the question earlier. I asked, "Are you willing to make the decision to send a young US Army infantryman to the front lines?"

[gearhog]

"The Ukrainians want to fight the Russians"

"Ukraine bears no fault, no blame, no responsibility"

2014:

https://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html

Edited Saturday at 05:46 PM by gearhog

[gearhog]

[disgruntledemployee]

On 2/21/2025 at 2:38 PM, blueingreen said:

...

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.

I was about to type some rambling on a what if regarding MEX, but it's too different.  A more similar scenario is something like the US has fallen from superpower status and invades Mex because they have a ton of resources that we need to dominate CentAM where CentAM is like the EU and the US thinks it can regain respect and superpower status and we want those resources very badly and can't dominate without them, but we say it's due to immigration and drugs.  This is what I think is more of the reason Russia invaded UKR, but saying its about resources and who sells to the EU sounds bad, so they just cry, "but NATO."

I've usually though nations today take actions based on Neuchterlein's matrix of survival, vital, major, peripheral issues.  Like a Western threat assessment.  For Russia, talk of UKR joining NATO was not a true survival issue, but they say they saw it as one.  I thinks it is a combo of NATO (I can see them whip themselves into a frenzy over the NATO notion) and the opportunity to take valuable resources and reestablish position in the world.  Did they expect the US to play?  Maybe not to the level we've done so far and they probably would have taken COA 2 or 3 instead if they thought so.  Crimea was their example and Dems have seemed less inclined to do things like start AFG, IRQ, etc.  Once committed, Russia is determined to see this through.  Time is on their side because nobody is doing anything more to tip the balance.  For UKR, this is a survival threat and I expect them to act as such.

Sorry I missed out on all the dog analogy stuff.  I go fly some and I'm a few pages behind.  I'm surprised nobody said they'd shoot the dog if it attacked them.  The analogy is poor because dog vs the most prolific killing machine the Earth has ever had, humans, is apples to oranges at best.