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 1 hour ago by BashiChuni