Excuse me, but you're changing the words. You didn't say "threat," and neither did I. You said "Russian concerns." Your assertion is that "Russian concerns were taken seriously." They were not. — Mikie

Right, I changed the word without realising it and your objection as well as our equivocation are understandable. I can grant you that much. But my claims preserve their value once we deal with the terminological quibble I failed to remove: when concerns are expressed in resentful and intimidatory terms (like NATO expanded despite their promise! Ukraine inside NATO is our red line! An existential threat! Don’t do it otherwise you will regret the consequences! etc.) by a nuclear power claimed to have the second strongest army in the world at the expense of Ukrainians who, coincidentally, were historically oppressed by the Russians. So the expression “Russian concerns” looks to me just as an euphemism for “Russian threats” good for the narrative that presents Russia as a victim.
Besides one should account for the Western (European allies included) caution in providing military support to Ukraine that certainly benefited Russia more than Ukraine.

So it's very strange that suddenly you say you're not interested in what we find "desirable or moral." I'm not interested in it either, which was the point. It doesn't matter if we prefer democracy or authoritarianism -- as you stated. What matters are the actions. We should react the same, not according to what we "prefer" (again, your words). — Mikie

You are conflating objections meant to address different issues. The first one was designed to address your China-Canada alliance thought experiment (where you concluded “How would that scenario play out? Would we therefore EXCUSE the US for invading Canada? Of course not”), and it can be rendered like this: take a chess game between D and A. If I know the game enough I can understand how the game is plaid on both sides. Yet I might prefer D to win because D is my beloved brother. So understanding the geopolitical game from both players perspectives, doesn’t commit anybody to impartiality as your China-Canada alliance thought experiment seemed to suggest (if US invaded a China-allied Canada, we wouldn’t excuse it as much as we do not excuse Russia for invading a Western-allied Ukraine, I would - using your terminology not mine - “excuse” the US, I would be biased toward the US, so not impartial, and fine with that).
The second one can be rendered like this: I’m interested in talking about the geopolitical game and moves, not in listening to scores based on how morally attractive you find players' behaviour, even more understandably so after having made clear I have a different moral compass from yours.

That's simply not the case. That wasn't the US's or NATO's position in 2008. I asked what was the Russian threat in 2008 -- because it was in April of 2008 that the Bucharest summit declared that Ukraine and Georgia would be admitted to NATO. Claiming the war in Georgia was a threat, and thus a reason for membership of NATO, is anachronistic. The war in Georgia did not break out until August of 2008. So that claim is nonsense. — Mikie

I wasn’t after a chronological recollection of events, so for me a Russian war in August of 2008 is a Russian threat in 2008. But if you are looking for a chronological recollection of events then wikipedia may help:
Vladimir Putin became president of the Russian Federation in 2000, which had a profound impact on Russo-Georgian relations. The conflict between Russia and Georgia began to escalate in December 2000, when Georgia became the first and sole member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on which the Russian visa regime was enforced. Eduard Kokoity, an alleged member of the mob, became the de facto president of South Ossetia in December 2001; he was endorsed by Russia since he would subvert the peaceful reunification of South Ossetia with Georgia. The Russian government began massive allocation of Russian passports to the residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2002 without Georgia's permission; this "passportization" policy laid the foundation for Russia's future claim to these territories. In 2003, President Putin began to consider the possibility of a military solution to the conflict with Georgia.
After Georgia deported four suspected Russian spies in 2006, Russia began a full-scale diplomatic and economic war against Georgia, followed by the persecution of ethnic Georgians living in Russia.
By 2008, most residents of South Ossetia had obtained Russian passports. According to Reuters, Russia supplied two-thirds of South Ossetia's yearly budget before the war.[74] South Ossetia's de facto government predominantly employed Russian citizens, who had occupied similar government posts in Russia, and Russian officers dominated South Ossetia's security organisations.[75]
[…]
In early March 2008, Abkhazia and South Ossetia submitted formal requests for their recognition to Russia's parliament shortly after the West's recognition of Kosovo which Russia had been resisting. Dmitry Rogozin, Russian ambassador to NATO, hinted that Georgia's aspiration to become a NATO member would cause Russia to support the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Russian State Duma adopted a resolution on 21 March, in which it called on the President of Russia and the government to consider the recognition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War#Russian_interests_and_involvement

The actions in Chechnya was the threat? Problems there had been occurring for years, internal to Russia. — Mikie

Precisely, the unresolved ethnic tensions within ex-soviet republics were perceivable as a source of political instability and revanchist urges. And the way Russia under Putin handled it in Chechnya provided a precedent for other ex-Soviet Republics’ strategic minds to digest.
There is where the link between NATO and ex-Soviet Republics could have more likely been perceived as beneficial for both sides: “Ethnic conflict in Russia: Implications for the United States” (Jan 2008)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10576109308435930?journalCode=uter20

It's quite true that if the US/NATO felt that Russian revanchism was threatening, that this should be taken seriously as well -- even if we believe it unjustified. But that was not the case. Neither the US, nor NATO, believed this was true in 2008. — Mikie

Have you considered the prospect that you are not looking in the right place? Read more Brezinski, if you want to get deeper insight into US/NATO’s strategy.

Sorry, but you simply declaring that one thing is more threatening than another is not interesting. Ask the Russians if they felt it was threatening. It is their opinion that matters, not yours. And they've been quite clear, for over decade.

This distinction between "lethal weapons" and "defensive weapons" is kind of ridiculous. Everything the US has ever done, accordion to them, is "defensive." When we invade Iraq, we're "defending" Iraq. So that's already a sign of repeating propaganda. But think about it for a minute: what do you think "defensive" weapons are? They're all completely non-lethal? So machine guns are for "defense," therefore they can't kill? Are the FGM-148 Javelins simply "defensive"? Because those have been supplied as well. They certainly seem lethal to me. They're called "anti-tank missiles."

Furthermore, "lethal weapons" had already been deployed in Ukraine prior to December. Russia troops had already begun mobilizing at this point as well. — Mikie

You may find ridiculous whatever you want, but there are unquestionable evidences that the history of the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations wrt Russian aggression is marked by their reluctance to send lethal weapons to Ukraine (“How successive U.S. administrations resisted arming Ukraine” https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/obama-trump-biden-ukraine-military-aid-1.6371378) because - as it is evident now - the American offensive weaponry would have made the difference on the battlefield. The first package of lethal weapons actually released by the US in Sep 2021, didn't come from Biden’s administration, but from Trump’s administration, and its release was ironically the side effect of the Trump Ukraine scandal, as I said. Knowing from his intel that might have strengthened Putin's resolve to wage war, Biden held the second package of lethal weapons in late December likely as a diplomatic leverage. But it turned out to be too late, it just gave more time to Putin to finalize the military build-up before the war declaration.

Everything that NATO/US does is "defensive" and meant merely as "deterrents." Right. Unfortunately, the Russians see it quite differently. They view anti-tank missiles and military drills with NATO -- including Operation Sea Breeze -- as a threat. — Mikie

As I said, we are in a strategic dilemma whereby every player reads aggressive intentions in others’ deterring moves, so it’s an ineffective argumentative retortion to remind me what I already expressly and repeatedly acknowledged before you ever did. Both rival geopolitical agents can plausibly denounce threats from their opponents and plausibly deny their own threats, especially when there is historical mistrust on top of conflicting strategic interests. But I’m not the one who is clinging that much on “who started first” issue as you seem to do. Nor am I clinging on picturing the US/NATO/Ukraine as a victim of Putin as much you seem to cling on picturing Putin as a victim of US/NATO/Ukraine to show off your moral impartiality.
In any case, acknowledging the strategic dilemma is not enough good reason to refuse the distinction between lethal and defensive weaponry: indeed, even if technically vague or inappropriate, that distinction is understandably related to the type of weaponry that is capable of making a difference in undermining the Russian aggression (here you can find some reactions from Russian officials: https://medium.com/dfrlab/much-ado-about-javelins-525055175d75). In other words, the distinction between lethal/defensive is less related to the nature of geopolitical strategic dilemmas and more to the designed function and operational performance of the weapon systems in strictly military terms.

Retreat from what? — neomac
From NATO expansion. — Mikie

And what does it mean to retreat from NATO expansion (in Sovereign States other then Russia and acknowledged as independent by Russia), if we exclude NATO invasion of Russian territories (from Sovereign States other then Russia and acknowledged as independent by Russia)?

Did Putin have evidence that Ukraine or NATO wanted to invade Russia? Or are we always talking about perceived strategic threats? — neomac
Suddenly evidence is important, and not "myopic"? Interesting.
Putin didn't have evidence, because that's not what Putin was claiming. Putin never claimed NATO wanted to "invade" Russia. Your failure to even minimally understand Russia's position here is telling. — Mikie

Evidence is important for rational assessment of course, “myopic” can be one’s way of assessing it. Now, asking for evidence that triggered support of Ukraine and Georgia NATO membership (as you did) was as legitimate as asking for evidence that triggered Putin anti-NATO reaction. And, as far as I’m concerned, the lesson here is twofold: threat perception is neither always grounded on actual direct threats but also on perceived strategic threats, nor is always voiced in clear/reiterated terms in public speeches (coz even vagueness - like the Russian nuclear threats - or offline diplomacy - like private negotiations e.g. “not one inch” eastward alleged promise - play their role). So e.g. Putin never specified what NATO existential threat is, nor what Russia was supposed to retreat from once Ukraine entered NATO. One can however guess what he might have meant in many ways based on geopolitical and historical considerations, along with experts’ feedback and public news/reports of course: e.g. in the case of Russia concerns about Ukraine threats might be persecution of Russian minorities, the Black sea fleet in Crimea, nuclear or long-range missile systems at the border, weaponry that could frustrate Russian land grab attempts, etc.

I've not once suggested that we let Ukraine "fall prey to Russia." I support US helping Ukrainians defend their country. — Mikie

Encourage and facilitate peace negotiations. The most immediate action would be a ceasefire. — Mikie

Right, where did I hear that already? You are claiming that facilitating peace negotiations and ceasefire can be more effective strategy in helping Ukrainians defend their country and its territorial integrity than by providing NATO membership, military training, or weapons to Ukraine? How so? Where are the evidence to support your claim from within your perspective? The conditions of peace negotiations by the Russians are unacceptable to Ukrainians, that’s why negotiations have failed. And if facilitating peace negotiations means to refuse the military support necessary to possibly conquer back their territorial integrity or preserve what is left, then that fails the strategic objective of helping Ukrainians defend their country. It sounds like saying: surrendering to terrorists' demands is the most effective way to fight terrorism, because if you do what they want they don't fight you back and you live in peace.
Besides once again, you are missing the big picture: the Ukrainian war is of global geopolitical significance, even more understandably so given how Putin framed the war in explicit defiance of the pro-Western global order (you didn’t miss his declarations right?). The US/NATO front while supporting Ukrainians is pursuing its strategic geopolitical goals as any great power is expected to do, because that’s the game I and Mearsheimer are talking about (despite the divergences which remain).

No, I'm not blaming the US and NATO for the war. The US and NATO were primarily responsible for escalating the war. That's a crucial difference. The blame for invasion is Putin's. — Mikie

Then I can’t follow your reasoning. If Putin is claimed to have started a war in response to the US/NATO/Biden administration attitude which didn't take Russian concerns seriously as Putin expected, and you believe this narrative to be enough supported by facts (given your line of reasoning “do you think Putin would have annexed Crimea and/or invaded Ukraine had the US not (1) pushed for NATO membership, (2) supplied weapons, and (3) conducted military training?”) then the US/NATO/Biden administration conduct is a one major causal factor (along with Putin) in the genesis of the Ukrainian crisis that dragged until beginning 2022 and led to this war. So unless you deny agency to US/NATO/Biden administration you logically have to attribute them some responsibility for the genesis of the war without denying Russian agency in directly starting the war, and if you disapprove of US/NATO/Biden administration conduct then you must consider US/NATO/Biden administration to some extent blameful. Indeed that’s in line with Mearsheimer’s argument in “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault”.

I have indeed mentioned peace. For good reason. — Mikie

Geopolitical reason or moral compass reason? Again I’m interested in listening the first kind of reasons.

It would help if you quoted the entirety of my response:

“Only”? I blame Putin for the war. NATO was a reason given for invasion — one that was given for years, clearly and consistently. The conclusion? That he’s an imperialist bent on expanding Russia. That’s wrong. It’s wrong because there’s no evidence supporting it, no matter how often it’s repeated in the media or on this thread. If you think there is evidence, happy to discuss that.


There is no evidence that the was an imperialist bent on expanding Russia. The answer given is about Crimea as evidence. This has been addressed before as well. — Mikie

No it doesn't help. What is an "imperialist bent"? What kind of evidence proves an "imperialist bent"?

I will just quote Mearsheimer, an expert on these matters, who puts it more succinctly than I could: — Mikie

Mearsheimer hinges on his own version of realism and on what he takes to be evidence for geopolitical theory to be assessed. I find his position problematic for reasons I'm lazy to summarise. I already mentioned a few of them in my earliest posts in this thread. I might add some more later on.

Not only is your premise here false — boethius

What premise is false?

If it was clear to everyone in the West that Ukraine would never join NATO ... then talking about it, giving some little NATO crumbs of equipment and training and so on, has no moral justification, it is purely a provocation to start a war. — boethius

Why would it be clear that Ukraine would never join NATO? Neither NATO open policy nor the Ukrainian willingness to gain its membership, nor the NATO/US administration was against it, but geopolitical concerns were interfering and Ukrainians were well aware of it. One might find this predicament regrettable for the Ukrainians and certain Western reluctance blameful. However your blunt moral accusations suggest a take on world affairs devoid of any realistic geopolitical expectations.

I'm talking about a very specific military threat (i.e. nuclear bombs), not about demilitarization, NATO membership, Ukrainian annexations (Crimea or Donbas). But as far as I know Putin requests didn't focus specifically and primarily on weapon systems, nor clarified what the existential threats those requests were supposed to address.

And precisely because the Americans failed they had to deal with the fact that Cuba was lost under the Russian sphere of influence. The red line was the actual nuclear threat, and the solution was focused on finding an agreement about the nuclear threat. Russia could have proposed the same to the US. But it didn't. And the other lesson here is that "the invasion's defeat solidified Castro's role as a national hero and widened the political division between the two formerly allied countries. It also pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union". So Russian attempts at invading Ukraine will likely push Ukraine into Western sphere of influence.

and?

They put their own sailors in harms way and made the ultimatum to the Soviets that if they wanted to keep their nukes in Cuba, then it would be war. — boethius

The US didn't annex parts of Cuba nor obtained Cuban neutrality/Cuban demilitarization/regime change. And US reaction was against an actual nuclear threat.

That he’s an imperialist bent on expanding Russia. That’s wrong. It’s wrong because there’s no evidence supporting it, no matter how often it’s repeated in the media or on this thread. If you think there is evidence, happy to discuss that. — Mikie

I’m responding only for my arguments. If you want to talk about “imperialism”, you better clarify what you mean by it in a way that is clear what you would take as an evidence for the concept to apply, because otherwise we are just quibbling over a terminological issue. See here: “Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas,[2][3] often through employing hard power (economic and military power), but also soft power (cultural and diplomatic power).” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism)
So America is called “imperialist” (https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/05/putin-speech-ukraine-annexation-western-imperialism/) even if they didn’t annex territories while Russia under Putin made 3 annexations (Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk) and subtracted territories to Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Besides Putin’s mission to protect persecuted Russian minorities is a popular pretext common in those who have imperialistic ambitions (https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ethnic-russification-baltics-kazakhstan-soviet/25328281.html).

So pushing for NATO membership by East European countries is an example of taking Russian concerns about NATO enlargement seriously?

“We take your concerns seriously by doing exactly what you’re concerned about.”

I’m not sure you’ve thought this through. You’re meandering into incoherence.

The point stands: the US and NATO did not take Russian concerns seriously — as was demonstrated above[/]. — Mikie

That’s why you are blaming also US/NATO for this war, right?

Either way, if pushing for NATO membership, supplying weapons and military training, etc., is “taking Russian concerns seriously,” as you asserted, then the assertion is indeed baseless and wrong. If their concerns were taken seriously, these actions wouldn’t have been taken. — Mikie

Taking a threat seriously means that one should not ignore the threat, but it doesn’t imply a specific course of action in response to that threat. If a mafia mobster goes to some business reclaiming his "pizzo", and the business owner manages to call the police to rescue himself instead of paying the mobster that doesn’t mean that the business owner didn’t take the threat seriously, on the contrary he did, that’s why he called the police. The points I was making with my comment were: first, we shouldn’t cling on the conflation between threat and expected response when we talk about “Taking Russian threat seriously” which has no other use than serving Putin’s narrative and therefore it prevents us from seeing US/NATO response as a deterring strategy (indeed, deterrence makes perfect sense against perceived serious threats!). Besides if NATO/US didn’t take Putin seriously, then also Putin didn’t take seriously “NATO membership, supplying weapons and military training, etc.” because if he did, he would have felt deterred.
Secondly, the Western response is mired in unresolved tensions between hardliners and softliners (since Obama, Westerners could have sent lethal weapons to Ukraine in greater stock much earlier than they did), while Putin response doesn’t suffer from comparable obstacles. And this observation is pertinent and non-negligible in a geopolitical perspective.

I prefer living in the US over living in Iraq. The US invasion of Iraq was still wrong.

Even if Russia were a democracy, the war is wrong. The US ignoring the Russian concerns and contributing to escalating the crisis is also wrong. — Mikie

So what? I’m more interested in testing the rationality of our expectations not in what we find desirable or moral. If all you have to offer is a list of scores based on your moral compass or desiderata, you are not intellectually challenging to me.

What was the Russian threat in 2008, exactly?

Attempting to reduce all of this to “both sides have an opinion, so there’s really no way to tell” is a cop-out and is quite convenient, as it relieves you of having to learn about it. — Mikie

I answered that already. In geopolitics, there are not only imminent military threats but also long term strategic threats [1]: nationalist revanchism was the most serious threat that Europe could think of after 2 WWs, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. That’s why Russia and Putin were under NATO’s radar. By the end of 2008 Putin was already on the path of centralising power (e.g. by fighting oligarchs since hist first presidency term) while signalling his geopolitical ambitions in his war against Chechnya and Georgia. This was already enough to alarm the West and the ex-soviet union countries (including Ukrainians who have a long history of nationalist tensions with Russia). That’s why NATO enlargement was welcomed by ex-Soviet republics and not the result of military occupation and annexation by NATO, you know.
Additionally your myopic demands for evidence fails to take into account the initial assumption of my geopolitical reasoning: “You candidly admit that Putin’s perception of the threat was honestly felt (even if, ex hypothesis, it’s not justified) , but that’s pointless to the extent that all geopolitical agents (not only Russia) as geopolitical agent reason strategically. And strategic reasoning comprises threat perception, signalling and management , so if one must acknowledge that Putin/Russia felt threatened by US/NATO (even if, ex hypothesis, it’s unjustified), then one must acknowledge that also US/NATO/Ukraine can feel threatened by Putin/Russia (even if, ex hypothesis, it’s unjustified).”. So US/NATO felt Putin and the rising of Russian revanchism honestly threatening, even if, ex hypothesis, it wasn’t justified. Period.

"Real intentions"? Again, let's stop simply declaring the "real intentions" of the US or Putin, and look at the facts. From the summit communiqué in June 2021 to the Joint Statement in September 2021 to the statements by Blinken in December (after Russia made clear demands about NATO) -- the words were consistent. What about the actions? Well, not only weapons were provided, but extensive military training, including with NATO forces. — Mikie

You are missing the fact that Biden froze the procurement of lethal weapons by the end of 2021 (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/appeals-ukraine-biden-admin-holds-back-additional-military-aid-kyiv-di-rcna8421) which were a more serious threat for Putin’s war machine than military training, defensive weapons and NATO promises. And again: NATO/US military support to Ukraine was meant as a deterrent (however weak), not as a buildup for a Russian invasion (here is another proof of concept: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/us/ukraine-war-missile.html).

10 thousand trained troops a year (Obama), Trump supplying "defensive weapons," and Biden's long-held and continued hawkishness toward Russia (including what I've already gone over) -- hardly what you describe. — Mikie

Again you are forgetting the issue of the lethal weapons. Not training, not NATO expansion, not defensive weapons, not the hawkish claims were the serious threat, otherwise Putin would have started his special operation much earlier. The serious military threat was the offensive weapon system provided to the Ukrainians against Putin’s expansionist ambitions.

Also in December, Putin said: “what they are doing, or trying or planning to do in Ukraine, is not happening thousands of kilometers away from our national border. It is on the doorstep of our house. They must understand that we simply have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they really think we do not see these threats? Or do they think that we will just stand idly watching threats to Russia emerge?” — Mikie

Retreat from what? Did Putin have evidence that Ukraine or NATO wanted to invade Russia? Or are we always talking about perceived strategic threats?
You keep presenting facts according to the Russian perspective but you didn’t explain yet why the West should act according to Putin’s way of framing the issue and related demands (NATO membership, no military training, no weapons for Ukraine) while letting Ukraine fall prey to Russia. How is that right? If Russia did something wrong in invading Ukraine according to your moral compass, what do you think it’s sensible to do about it? Besides you even claimed “So you don't believe Putin. Understood. I don't blame anyone for that. I don't blame anyone for not believing American presidents when they say things either. I think we should be very skeptical”, so what’s the point of objecting that the West didn’t take Putin’s demands the way he expected ?

Based on the statements and actions by the US and NATO, it's quite clear they weren't "naked and powerless," nor did Russia see it that way.

So this is another baseless assertion. — Mikie

If Putin must be treated as a rational agent, then Putin couldn’t possibly start a military confrontation with a non-aggressive competitor against which, ex-hypothesis, he believed having no chance or little chance of winning. If Putin is a rational agent, we must assume he acted according to some rational expectations appropriate for those circumstances: namely, he believed to have a serious chance to get what he wanted and NATO/US couldn’t really deter him, so that he could plausibly claim to have won a war against the West, because that’s how his propaganda keeps framing the war. And even now that the military performance of Russia proved to be so poor on the battle field, Russia keeps escalating, mobilising people, threatening to go nuclear and celebrating his trophies (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63052207). What matters here, it’s not if he “really” wins but if his victory claims based on his military achievements sound convincing enough to destabilise the cohesion of the Western alliance, draw on his side resources and commitments from his anti-Western valuable allies and therefore inflict a big geopolitical blow on Western hegemony.

So here we stand:

• You are blaming also US/NATO for this war in Ukraine
• You do not ground your judgement based on geopolitical strategic concerns, only on your cute moral compass (honesty, impartiality, peace&lovefulness)

[1]
And one wants to assess strategic threats, then one has to reason like Mearsheimer's here:
The only way to predict how a rising China is likely to behave toward its neighbors as well as the United States is with a theory of great-power politics. The main reason for relying on theory is that we have no facts about the future, because it has not happened yet. Thomas Hobbes put the point well: “The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only; but things to come have no being at all.” Thus, we have no choice but to rely on theories to determine what is likely to transpire in world politics.
https://nationalinterest.org/article/say-goodbye-taiwan-9931

No. I never said the US or NATO should be blamed for the war. Putin is to blame for the war. Why? Because it was his decision to invade Ukraine. I think it’s on par with the US invasion of Iraq. — Mikie

* I’m not blaming the US or NATO. — Mikie

I didn’t mean that you were blaming this war only on US/NATO. But as your line of reasoning goes (“do you think Putin would have annexed Crimea and/or invaded Ukraine had the US not (1) pushed for NATO membership, (2) supplied weapons, and (3) conducted military training?”), US/NATO expansion and meddling in Ukraine provoked Putin’s “special operation”, and therefore “US/NATO is to be blamed for the beginning of the war” where “beginning of the war” is Putin launching his “special operation”.
Indeed, that’s the kind of premise that Mearsheimer holds (along with his type of geopolitical realism) to support his controversial claim : “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault”.
And if you are not claiming that what is your point in asking me that question?

the Russian concerns for NATO enlargement precede Putin and have been taken seriously — neomac

This is an assertion. Where’s the evidence? Pushing for NATO membership (up to and including the 2021 NATO summit), supplying weapons, conducting military drills, providing extensive training, etc., all why Russia was repeatedly calling it a red line (acknowledged by allies, experts, and our CIA as threatening and provocative) — is all that taking it seriously? — Mikie

“Taking seriously” means different things for different geopolitical actors depending on their strategy: for Russia it meant that the West should provide security assurance and of course “pushing for NATO membership (up to and including the 2021 NATO summit), supplying weapons, conducting military drills, providing extensive training, etc.,” are the opposite of security assurance for Putin. For Germany it meant boycott any attempt to have Ukraine joining NATO (which is in line with Putin’s security assurance). For East-European countries (including Ukraine) it meant “pushing for NATO membership (up to and including the 2021 NATO summit), supplying weapons, conducting military drills, providing extensive training, etc.,” because they needed security assurance from the US against the Russian revanchist threat!
Yet one can argue that Russian’s threats have been addressed the way Russia preferred to some extent by the West, proof of that is not only prominent Western allies' reluctance to welcome Ukraine candidature for NATO membership but also the many ways in which the US administrations avoided sending “lethal weapons” to Ukraine (https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/obama-trump-biden-ukraine-military-aid-1.6371378). The irony in this is that, as far as I’ve understood, the first aid package including lethal weapons that was actually released for Ukraine came from Putin’s old sport Donald Trump after the Trump–Ukraine scandal came out (where the Trump–Ukraine scandal consisted roughly in Trump pressuring Ukraine to compromise Biden in exchange for lethal weapons!).
What I find particularly misleading in your claim is your “acknowledged by allies, experts, and our CIA as threatening and provocative” because the understatement is that since allies and some experts were against threatening and provoking Russia by “pushing for NATO membership (up to and including the 2021 NATO summit), supplying weapons, conducting military drills, providing extensive training, etc.,” then those moves were illegitimate. But that’s a biased view, indeed one could as easily claim that other allies, other experts and other pentagon representatives were “pushing for NATO membership (up to and including the 2021 NATO summit), supplying weapons, conducting military drills, providing extensive training, etc.,” with the intent not to provoke but to deter Russia!
In other words, we are facing here a security dilemma: while we can argue that NATO had no malign intentions against Russia (just legitimate security concerns) as plausibly as we can argue that Russia had no malign intentions against the West (just legitimate security concerns), it may certainly be the case the case that each side reads hostile intentions into the other’s actions, probably due to deep-rooted/historical mistrust! That’s why it’s a hopeless exercise to take any side to admit having been the first one to start the escalation.

How would that scenario play out? Would we therefore EXCUSE the US for invading Canada? Of course not. But it shouldn’t come as a shock. Nor should we invent stories about how the US President’s “real” motive is to conquer all of the Western Hemisphere. — Mikie

Again this example seems inspired by Mearsheimer’s article “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault” [2]. The problem is that there Mearsheimer was just talking about threat perception and intolerance signaling between state powers, and this was meant to prove the concept of “legitimate security concerns” (as opposed to imperialistic ambitions) in the case of Russia. No great power tolerates threats at their doorstep, fine hence my concession earlier (when I said I don’t deny “the fact that Putin’s concerns bear some strategic plausibility (having US/NATO so close to the Russian borders was too risky, even if NATO is a self-proclaimed defensive alliance)”). However there are 2 problems in the way you rendered Mearsheimer’s example: 1. I find your rhetorical question (“Would we therefore EXCUSE the US for invading Canada? Of course not”) controversial. If state A threatens state B in its proximity or state A invades state B, I could react differently depending on which state is democratic or authoritarian, because I prefer democracy over authoritarian regimes. 2. I find the reference to “President’s ‘real’ motive” highly misleading in the case of Putin for the following reasons: A) Putin’s ambition to challenge the Western world order is declared and perfectly in line with Russian revanchism (so Putin is not simply talking of having a buffer state, and the so far annexed territories aren’t a buffer state anyways!), B) Putin’s military-economically-ideologically projection outside Russian borders in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, Mediterranean, Baltic and Artic proves his ambition to expand the Russian sphere of influence on a global scale C) Putin’s real motives pre-existed him (revanchist nationalist ambitions aren’t an invention of Putin) and might last after him (even if Putin is deposed, whoever will replace him can end up being like him, strive to achieve what Putin couldn’t), and be inspiration for others (challenging the West is a study case for other potential Western challengers like China and Iran). So the geopolitical relevance of his actions and claims go beyond his personal motivations.

I wouldn’t have predicted an exact date, of course, but things had escalated in 2021 after Biden took over. The Biden administration made it quite clear what its intentions were. So from the statements by NATO in June of 2021, to the joint statement by the White House on September 1st, to statements made by Blinken in December ‘21 and January ‘22 — yes, there was a shift. It wasn’t out of the blu — Mikie

Even in this case, I'm still looking after a bigger picture:

• That’s why I keep an eye on what is done, not only on what is said (BTW Putin said he would increase “support” to the military occupied area of Dunbas in late 2020): on one side we have Putin that maintains his military control over occupied Eastern Ukrainian territories, signals escalating intentions early after Biden started his presidency in January 2021 [3] on the other we have Biden freezing by the end of 2021 his own procurement of lethal weapons (despite having declared his willingness to send lethal weapons to Ukraine) and making de-escalating claims (“Biden says the US won't put troops on the ground even if Russia invades Ukraine”), under the pressure of many who wanted him to de-escalate with Putin. So, Biden administration’s real intentions do not necessarily match with their declared intentions. And Biden’s hesitation vs Putin’s determination must be acknowledged.
• Additionally what I care most it's not the beginning of the war as a function of its military deployment per se, but its broader geopolitical significance: in 2021 Putin was already de facto military-occupying and Russifying people in Donetsk and Luhansk regions for 7 years (under Obama’s and Trump’s watch). Given Obama’s soft approach, Trump’s complicity, Biden administration’s hesitation, the success in annexing Crimea, no real deterring counterpart to his military buildup strategy in Donbas, the Russian intel assuring him about the likely success of a blitzkrieg (leaving de facto no time even for the procurement of lethal weapons), the prospect of doing all this without mobilising the Russian population, plus all kinds of pretexts that even the Western public opinion was so passionately ready to acknowledge, one can’t possibly fail to see why Putin must very likely have felt that the times were propitious and US/NATO couldn’t really do anything about it. So finally the US/NATO king was naked, powerless!

[1] My own realist theory of international relations says that the structure of the international system forces countries concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate goal of every major state is to maximize its share of world power and eventually dominate the system. In practical terms, this means that the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony in their region of the world, while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region.
To be more specific, the international system has three defining characteristics. First, the main actors are states that operate in anarchy, which simply means that there is no higher authority above them. Second, all great powers have some offensive military capability, which means they have the wherewithal to hurt each other. Third, no state can know the intentions of other states with certainty, especially their future intentions. It is simply impossible, for example, to know what Germany’s or Japan’s intentions will be toward their neighbors in 2025.
In a world where other states might have malign intentions as well as significant offensive capabilities, states tend to fear each other. That fear is compounded by the fact that in an anarchic system there is no night watchman for states to call if trouble comes knocking at their door. Therefore, states recognize that the best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that another state will attack it. No Americans, for example, worry that Canada or Mexico will attack the United States, because neither of those countries is strong enough to contemplate a fight with Uncle Sam.

https://nationalinterest.org/article/say-goodbye-taiwan-9931


[2]
After all, the United States does not tolerate distant great powers deploying military forces anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, much less on its borders. Imagine the outrage in Washington i! China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it. Logic aside, Russian leaders have told their Western counterparts on many occasions that they consider
the expansion into Georgia and Ukraine unacceptable, along with any effort to turn those countries against Russia—a message that the 2008 Russian-Georgian war also made crystal clear.

https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf


[3]
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/world/europe/russia-open-skies-treaty-biden.html
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/kremlin-tv-chief-russia-must-annex-east-ukraine/
https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/the-russian-military-escalation-around-ukraines-donbas

The issue is whether or not it's true, and to weigh alternative explanations against the evidence. I've done so, and I'm of the opinion that Putin wasn't lying about Russia believing NATO involvement in Ukraine was a threat. Please note -- and this is very important -- that this doesn't mean it actually WAS a threat -- simply that he actually believed it. After saying so consistently for 14 years -- reiterated by others in the Russian government, by experts, by foreign leaders (including Angela Merkel), we should at least consider the possibility that he really believed it. — “Mikie

You are convinced that the issue is whether or not Putin is lying b/c probably your line of reasoning looks something like this: since Putin honestly believed and repeatedly declared that US/NATO expansion was a threat (no matter if it really was) and US/NATO kept provoking Russia, then the US/NATO should be blamed for the beginning of this war. And since the US/NATO is to be blamed for the beginning of the war, then it has to both take the negotiation initiative and make all the necessary concessions to restore Putin’s sense of security. This is what can be done to reach peace, and peace is what we all should pursue. And if I don’t acknowledge the validity and truthfulness of this reasoning it’s because I’m biased or fell for the lies spread by the US/NATO propaganda, like the Western noble/harmless intention of supporting Ukraine, or Putin is Hitler’s reincarnation. And if I try to talk about something else, I’m missing the point.
Now, I’ve heard this argument several times on this thread. But it’s not here that I’ve heard it (or at least the first part of it) for the first time, since I’m very much interested in geopolitics and knew Mearsheimer’s views (often reported as a source for such arguments) well enough prior to even reading posts in this thread.
However, if that’s your line of reasoning and that’s all you’ve got to question my views, then you totally missed the target. Indeed, read carefully, I do not question the plausibility of your premises (Putin warned the US/NATO several times and he should have been taken seriously) nor the conclusion you care so much about (the US/NATO provoked Russia into this war) nor the fact that many experts blamed the US/NATO enlargement for that reason (after all, if the US/NATO didn’t provoke Russia, Russia wouldn’t have felt pushed to wage war) nor the fact that Putin’s concerns bear some strategic plausibility (having US/NATO so close to the Russian borders was too risky, even if NATO is a self-proclaimed defensive alliance). What I question is the idea that that’s all there is to say: on the contrary, until all these points are properly understood in geopolitics terms, as precondition to form rational expectations about geopolitical agents (i.e. Russia, Ukraine, US, NATO, etc.), your line of reasoning is deeply misleading. Here is why:

• You are analysing historical events as a function of 2 results: peace (which you like) and war (which you do not like). Now in geopolitics the endgame is neither peace nor war, it’s power (even for Mearsheimer!!!), so what one should expect from geopolitical agents (US/NATO or Russia) is a course of action that in given circumstances is, at least, perceived to maximise power or minimise loss of power (so peace and war must be assessed as a function of power)
• You candidly admit that Putin’s perception of the threat was honestly felt (even if, ex hypothesis, it’s not justified), but that’s pointless to the extent that all geopolitical agents (not only Russia) as geopolitical agent reason strategically. And strategic reasoning comprises threat perception, signalling and management , so if one must acknowledge that Putin/Russia felt threatened by US/NATO (even if, ex hypothesis, it’s unjustified), then one must acknowledge that also US/NATO/Ukraine can feel threatened by Putin/Russia (even if, ex hypothesis, it’s unjustified).
• You are claiming that Putin warned the West so many times since 2008, suggesting the idea that US/NATO didn’t take him seriously, but you are completely wrong: the Russian concerns for NATO enlargement precede Putin and have been taken seriously very early since the collapse of Soviet Union [1], and even more so with Putin since 2008 [2] (hope you know who Brzezinski is!). Russian revanchist nationalism after soviet era and concerns for NATO's presence in Europe were among the motivations of NATO expansionism.
• Your analysis doesn’t offer any relevant insights about the timing of Putin’s decision to wage war against Ukraine. This would allow a better assessment of Putin’s posture wrt alleged US/NATO threat. If US/NATO were warned for such a long time and Putin felt repeatedly provoked by US/NATO meddling in Ukraine, why did he wait so long to wage war against Ukraine? Or why didn’t he wait longer? After all Ukrainians’ NATO membership wasn’t imminent? From a geopolitical point of view, the timing of Putin’s gamble is clear: US/NATO was perceived at its weakest point! Indeed, EU was deeply divided (conflicting national interests, populist movements, Brexit), France was declaring NATO brain-dead, Germany was economically deeply dependent on Russia and reluctant to invest for its security or to confront Russia (e.g. by welcoming Ukraine inside NATO), the US was on the brink of a civil war, focused on the long term challenge against China, tired of an endless war against terrorism (which ended badly in Afghanistan), tempted by the isolationist siren songs, and led by a senile president while other global problems (pandemic, recession, climate change) seemed deplete whatever Western residual reactivity. Add to that A) Putin’s successful military operations within Russia (against Chechens and Georgians), in the middle east and in Africa, and most of all the easy-peasy annexation of Crimea. B) The success of the pro-Russian propaganda at home and in the West (with the support of western populist movements) C) the strong economic ties or partnerships in Asia and the rest of the world. All winds were blowing in the right directions. D) Russian intel convinced him he could obtain regime change in Ukraine in one week or so, the Americans too didn’t expect the Ukrainian would have resisted as they did (Biden even expressly said the US won't put troops on the ground even if Russia invades Ukraine!), and Zelensky didn’t even believe Putin could really start a war (bombing and invading a brother country?!). E) He didn’t even need to sacrifice Russians (ethnic minorities and mercenaries would have been enough for a blitzkrieg). Putin’s conclusion: so let’s go for it, fellas, because US/NATO is reeeeeeeeally threatening, but… well not to the point of scaring me, head of the most nuclear power state with the second strongest army on Earth, out of waging war against little Ukraine, not now anyways, so better to profit, right? And since the US/NATO power is declining, let's even make everybody clear that that's a New World Order challenge led by Russia (that's how much he felt threatened by US/NATO you know!). Implication: what does that mean if Putin succeeds? That indeed US/NATO is weak and incapable to deter, right? Right China? Right Iran? Right ISIS terrorists? Right European populist movements? Right anti-Western-Capitalist-Colonialist-Multinationals-Freemason-Zionist activists? Right MAGA activists? Coz that's why Putin wanted so badly to brand his reasons for this war on world stage. Punish the West and take everybody else hostile to the West on board to punish the West naked king. Now that’s roughly, what is at stake from a geopolitical perspective, and your narrow-minded blaming game totally fails to acknowledge.

A last remark: WE ALL (me and you included) are in the same predicament here. Despite our best intentions and the best of our knowledge, we must deal with the prospect that our claims may very well be or sound instrumental to some evil propaganda as well as indirectly complicit to past/present/future crimes of evil forces. So don’t waste your time convincing me that I’m a dumb partisan while you are an enlightened impartial observer, just because you want peace&love for everybody and everybody for peace&love.


[1]
Dr. Brzezinski, some critics of NATO enlargement are alarmed by the negative reaction of Russia to this policy. If, as we are led to believe by those critics, Russia has no designs on the territory of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, how does the membership of those countries in NATO impact Russian interests?
Dr. Brzezinski. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that it impacts on Russian interests adversely at all unless Russia is of the view that NATO is an enemy and that the United States is an enemy. If that is the Russian view, then we have a very serious problem, in which case we ought to expand NATO for that reason as well.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-105shrg46832/html/CHRG-105shrg46832.htm

[2]
https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/twq08springbrzezinski.pdf

Notice I don't condemn the US for helping Ukraine defend itself from invasion -- or Germany, or Britain. If I pick a side, I pick the side of the Ukrainian people being murdered and displaced. No question. I’m against war, nuclear weapons, NATO, the Warsaw Pact (when it existed), etc. — Mikie

There is a deep-rooted assumption here that we have to clarify beforehand. You seem to take your claim in bold as a justification of your other claims. If so, your political view seems matter of establishing what you want (e.g. rights) and are against (e.g. war), and then keep condemning left and right to get as much as possible in compliance to your preferences. For me, this is not the most rational political attitude, because it sounds like me wanting pizza and being against calories, and then condemning the government until they oblige the pizza chefs give me the pizza I like with zero calories without ever wondering if my request makes even sense. So the political attitude I find more rational is trying to understand better what can be done by the government, and then push for my demands.

However, the issue here isn't one of slavery. It's one of geopolitics. — Mikie

I disagree. Here is a definition of geopolitics: “Geopolitics is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: de facto independent states with limited international recognition and relations between sub-national geopolitical entities, such as the federated states that make up a federation, confederation or a quasi-federal system.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitics)
So the struggle between federal government and confederate states wanting to secede, is matter of geopolitics and abolition of slavery is what avg people with progressive views could see cashing out from this bloody war.

But let me ask you: do you think Putin would have annexed Crimea and/or invaded Ukraine had the US not (1) pushed for NATO membership, (2) supplied weapons, and (3) conducted military training? I'm pretty sure you do think he would have. Fine. — Mikie

No I don’t claim that Putin would have annexed Crimea and/or invaded Ukraine had the US not (1) pushed for NATO membership, (2) supplied weapons, and (3) conducted military training. I just claim that if Putin wanted to annex Crimea and/or invaded Ukraine, he would have done this with whatever pretext. More about this below…

So what would be the rationale for doing so? To win back the territory of the Soviet Union? Putin himself said he thought it was a stupid idea. But what evidence convinces you of it? — Mikie

But why expand NATO, if Russia was so different then? It was NATO's goal to be the balance against the Soviet Union, so when it fell, why keep it around? What's the threat? — Manuel

You guys are missing 3 key points in the history of NATO expansion:

• The role of countries in western and eastern Europe: it’s not like the US just wanted to expand and puff it expanded, against everybody else’s will and for free. Western and eastern European countries welcomed the preservation and expansion of the US security umbrella as well as the market integration that would have allowed for their national security concerns and economy benefits. Western Europeans’ security concern was more focused on Germany, Central Europeans’ security concern could be focused on either Germany or Russia while Eastern Europeans’ was more focused on Russia (if not other neighbouring countries). So the implicit win-win bargain for European countries to the US was roughly something like: you give me security and I’ll give you an integrated/peaceful market for your products and technology.
• The threats ensuing from the collapse of Soviet Union: there is a load of literature since the early 90’s talking about the resurgence of revanchist nationalism movements in ex-Soviet republics, with Russia on top of all of them, and notice that the incentives for the rising of local revanchist nationalist movements were present prior to the collapse of soviet union given how the central Soviet Russian government treated its republics (like Ukraine). Yugoslavia was the clearest evidence of such threats before this war.
• The geopolitical gamble the US took with the globalisation: the implicit bargain the US offered to the Rest of the world was roughly something like the European countries proposed to the US, namely “let’s form a global market for everybody’s prosperity in exchange for global security assurance”. After ~30 years of trying to make this work the US concluded that some ambitious regional powers (e.g. China, Russia, Iran) instead of improving standard of life and regime of rights for their people with the resources available thanks to the globalisation (peaceful and convergent with western progressive views), they were growing more authoritarian, more sympathetic toward anti-western propaganda (if they weren't already, and exporting it also into western countries), more assertive (in economic-military terms) outside their borders and naturally converging into a front hostile to the West. And that's the opposite of security assurance. So Ukraine turned out to be willingly or unwillingly the plausible key test for the US to revise their security strategy both in Europe and on a global scale and address the threats coming from powerful authoritarian anti-Western regimes before it was too late.

:up:

One can enjoy the hard-fought rights of the US — freedom of speech, for example — and still recognize the awful foreign policy of the government.
I condemn Putin for this war, and I also condemn my government for its actions leading up to it. This idea of “picking a side” is strange. — Mikie

It’s like me saying: I can enjoy pizza and still recognise the awful amount of calories it contains. In other words, there might be a strong link between a regime of human rights under a certain government and the awful foreign policy of that government which is undeniably hard to swallow once you realise it.

BTW the abolition of slavery in the US was the result of bloody civil war where, one could argue, Confederates were provoked into war by the federal government: indeed, many Southern leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election. After Lincoln won, many Southern leaders felt that disunion was their only option, fearing that the loss of representation would hamper their ability to promote pro-slavery acts and policies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War). Now I imagine somebody like you at that time saying: “I condemn the Confederates for this war, and I also condemn my federal government for its actions leading up to it. This idea of ‘picking a side’ is strange”.

:up:

OK, where did you get this information?

Note that the Amnesty report in question is being reviewed by the organization. It was rejected by many long-time Amnesty members as flawed in its methodology (written only by foreigners) and conclusions that fuel Russian propaganda narratives.

There was no accusation of war crime by Ukrainian forces in that report, anyway, so Isaac is lying, as he often does. — Olivier5

I don't know what you mean by "reviewed by the organization". The article clearly states:
Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today.
Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets.
I don't know if the accusations of "fighting tactics endengering civilians" and alleged evidences provided by Amnesty suffice in legal terms though. Anyways I knew also about the reactions that the Amnesty's claims sparked from the wikipedia page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#Placement_of_military_objectives_near_civilian_objects

You look at the West through pink-coloured glasses, apparently unable to acknowledge political malpractice when it is carried out by the West. — Tzeentch

Then you did not read me carefully enough. And I agree with @Olivier5

Tell me, would you have asked poor Americans that were drafted to commit a de facto genocide in Vietnam why they didn't just flee the country if they didn't like it? — Tzeentch

As an avg Westerner, no of course. But that's not your situation, right? Nor the situation of any avg Westerner as far as I can tell.

Your argument requires a comparison, it cannot be supported by the provision of only one side. You argued that the effect was greater than... that requires two sources showing that one is greater than the other. Providing one source and saying "wow, that looks really big" is not sufficient. — Isaac

Sure, but here you are failing to understand at much deeper level. I’ll try to summarise the main points in the simplest way I can:

• It doesn’t make sense to me to set rational standards arbitrary high because we are cognitively limited creatures, that’s true for the front-line expert go figure for the avg person. So the best the avg person can do is to invest part of their cognitive skills in understanding global events that impact his life by relying on some experts within his reach, and process the information in accordance to some affordable rational standards (not whatever arbitrary high standard, not even a scientific/expert standard).
• Now let’s assume, for example, that from the experts’ feedback within my reach I can find a study which estimates the global economic impact of the war in Ukraine in these terms: “Billions of people face the greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation” so what one can logically infer is that no other cost-of-living crisis in a generation were as great as the one resulted by this war (this is a comparison) and that no "greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation” was provoked by other events distinct by the war in Ukraine (this is another comparison). So some relevant comparisons are done for me by the expert. How about infrastructural damage and human damage? They must be taken into account (check the stats, make comparisons with other war around the world etc.), but I’ll come to that later.
• There is a war in Ukraine because Putin decided to pursue a war on the Ukrainian territory. So the comparison is now not only in terms of nature or volume of the damage but also in terms of political agency. “Billions of people face the greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation” is the result of the Ukrainian war that a single person decided to pursue.
• Now the crucial point (but I can’t elaborate it in greater detail, nor I can reference any specific geopolitical experts that I read, anyway Mearsheimer could be a starting point): what really counts at state level in a international system, it’s not just the absolute or relative volume of damage (in material and human terms) wrt the subjacent political agency that this war is causing, but also its geopolitical relevance in the context of power struggles or equilibria. That is the factor that can magnify or shrink the weight of any cost/benefit metrics one can provide: 1M deaths in Yemen do not damage the American hegemony (on the contrary - one could argue - it increases it b/c it’s a proxy war against the Iranian regime) as 5K deaths in Ukraine so they do not have the same geopolitical value. So why is the 5K deaths in Ukraine so valuable? Because Putin is now the only head of state with the resources and the determination to military challenge the West and so destabilise the American-led world order with a war in Ukraine. By doing this he’s going to be an example for anti-Western authoritarian regimes and at the same time an incentive to build an allegiance among countries antagonising the West. That’s why the US (and the West) can’t just let go of Ukraine and ignore all the geopolitical implications.
• Concerning me, why do I side with the West? For the simple reason that in the West avg people could enjoy a level of rights and material well-being that I find evidently preferable than what I and like-minded people could get in authoritarian regimes. The price for this, is to deal with all the shit geopolitical power struggles & equilibria implies, as anybody else who has a sense of realpolitik should do, no matter of what their preference is.

Now let’s get back to your original objection (N.B. the same considerations will apply to this other objection [1]): “Lots of global events cause that level of damage - from local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty... Do we mount a multi-billion dollar campaign against each? No”. No, lots of global events do not cause “that level of damage” because the level of damage in geopolitical terms is not measurable in one single dimension (e.g. number of deaths or infrastructural damage, BTW what infrastructural damage is doing oppressive police?) irrespective of the nature of the subjacent political agency (one can not stop global environmental pollution and poverty as Putin can stop his war with a single decision) and irrespective of their impact on the power equilibria on a global scale (why on earth would one think that 1M deaths in Myanmar or Yemen or O(100K) deaths in England due to lack of public health interventions impact power equilibria on a global scale as the war in Ukraine? What’s the geopolitical theory that would support such claims? None).

it is precisely the geopolitical significance of this war to the global order that magnifies the importance of any material and human damage caused by this war, especially from the Western prospective. — neomac
So I was right with "...you reckon" then, since none of that can be quantified and rests entirely on your subjective opinion. — Isaac

I don’t understand what you mean by “subjective” here. Surely I’m expressing my opinion as opposed to expressing the opinion of someone else. And I’m expressing my opinion about what I find intelligible as a legitimate goal of the West within the geopolitical game as opposed to expressing my opinion about what I find intelligible as a legitimate goal of Russia within the geopolitical game. But this is not subjective to me: if one knows the game of chess and understands that player A has to move in certain ways to win a chess game against B, his belief is not subjective. What could be subjective is his personal support for player A. Given certain geopolitical assumptions, I find enough intelligible some moves of the West in this war and their relevance (that part is not subjective). In addition to that, I side with the West (that part is subjective).

1) Look back through my posts. I've cited dozens of experts, yet still this cheap rhetorical trick is trotted out every few pages "where's your evidence", as if it hadn't already been supplied in droves.
2) You cannot expect to keep shifting the burden of proof and act as if that was a counter argument. If you think there are literally no experts advising multi-billion dollar campaigns against poverty, famine, pollution, and disease, then you're the one who needs to supply evidence to back up such a wild claim. — Isaac

You may have supplied in droves what you think it was relevant to you, not what I asked in my previous comment. I find plausible that there are “experts advising multi-billion dollar campaigns against poverty, famine, pollution, and disease” but my questions were more specific: e.g. who are the “experts in their field” arguing that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”?
Now the last experts you cited during our recent exchanges weren’t dozens but only two, as far as I can remember, namely Janne Mende and Ahmed Shaheed [2] and their quotations were about the contributions or struggles of some non-Western countries in institutionally codifying “human rights”. In those quotations, nowhere is written “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts” nor anything that resembles it enough to me. Those quotes do not fall within the scope of what I asked. That’s one a rational failure of yours. Besides you quoted them to counter another claim of mine but also in that case those quotations were beyond the scope of my claim. That’s another rational failure of yours.
Besides global governance institutions far from being an infallible or impartial normative constraining factor for geopolitical agents, they are often instruments of geopolitical power, so it’s naive to form rational expectations from global governance institutions and their history without considering the subjacent geopolitical power struggles or equilibria. Always for the same reason, prescriptions (moral, legal, epistemic) to be rational must be grounded on possibilities, means, powers. So we shouldn’t confuse the expert in the domain of what is allowed by the norm, with the expert in the domain of what can be done with proper means. Or infer from what the expert of the normative domain assesses as legitimate or illegitimate the conclusion that is what is likely the case (this would a confusion between should and can) without further assumptions. Failing to acknowledge this would amount to another rational failure of yours.

Well, we might still disagree on how to asses experts. And even on how one cites experts. — neomac
I don't see how. The qualification of experts is pretty standard, as is the method of citation. — Isaac

Yet you can fail it, as you can fail an addition or a modus tollens. For example by conveniently citing what supports your point but omitting what questions it, or by confusing the pertinence of the expertise (the feedback of the expert in the institutional domain of international relations may be not as relevant as the feedback of the expert in geopolitical analysts in the domain of security). So it’s not matter of standards, but on how you apply it.

One can still discriminate between rational and irrational — neomac
To paraphrase Van Inwagen, if you and your epistemic peer disagree, you must accept the possibility of your epistemic peer group being wrong, and that includes you. You cannot resolve a disagreement about what is rational by appeal to what is rational. — Isaac

I’m not here to resolve disagreements. I’m here to exercise my rational skills as a form of intellectual entertainment. And my impression so far is that, to paraphrase Heraclitus, you are playing dumb, dude.

As I said, you need to meet a minimum threshold of comprehension to take in part in discussions at this level. If you seriously don't understand how evidence underdetermines theories then I can't help you (not on this thread anyway - feel free to open a thread raising the question and we can discuss it there). — Isaac

I seriously don’t understand if you understand how evidence underdetermines theories, and how it helps your counter my arguments. So until you clarify this in better terms, I’ll assume you have no clue of what you are talking about.

I want to do neither. The argument was about whether Ukraine had committed war crimes, I posted an article proving they had. That's it. It does not need to further caveats to remind everyone that Russia has too, and the suggestion that Wikipedia is a better source than an actual published paper is too absurd for further comment. — Isaac

Olivier wrote: “That's all you could come up with in terms of Ukrainian war crimes??? No torture, no rapping, no murder of civilians, but the purely symbolic act of greasing a bullet”
So the sarcastic remark wasn’t about war crime per se, but the nature of war crimes committed by Ukrainians. You article didn’t list any of such war crimes (“endanger civilians” is not equal to “murder civilians”). And I wasn’t suggesting that wikipedia is better source than amnesty for the simple reason that wikipedia cites many amnesty papers as a source (including your article), actually is pretty much a summary of all what Amnesty has reported! How absurd is this comment of yours now? Pray tell.




[1]

A few million are currently at severe risk of starvation (according to UNICEF) in Afghanistan.

Off the top of my head, something like 10-20,000 are killed in the Myanmar conflict in a year, a few thousand a year every single year for decades in the Mexican war on drugs. The US supported war in Yemen has killed over a million with a similar annual death toll to Myanmar.

A failure to tackle air pollution kills 100,000 or more people every year in India. Even here in England there are something like 100-150,000 deaths a year from all causes that could be avoided through public health interventions.

There's wars in Ethiopia and Somalia which, coupled with famines, cause thousands of deaths every year. Half a million children are at risk of death from the latest drought and that's barely even made the inside pages of most newspapers, nearly twice that in Sudan… — Isaac

[2]

As Janne Mende argues...

the Western human rights tradition cannot be equated with the contemporary human rights regime, which differs from its pre-1945 predecessors (Moyn, 2012). It was not the gradual increase of declarations or a smooth combination of natural law and citizenship rights that led to the foundation of the international human rights regime, but rather the international reaction to the genocide and atrocities committed by National Socialist Germany

Interpreting the pre-1945 declarations in their historical contexts reveals that they were not fully embraced by Western societies at the time but were the subject of highly controversial struggles (Bielefeldt, 2007: 182f.).3 What is more, pre-1945 non-Western movements and struggles encompassed similar or even further-reaching ideas that provided a foundation for human rights.

Critical accounts identify a tendency to overemphasize human rights violations in the Global South. This tends to construct a non-Western “other” that needs to be saved by Western states (Chakrabarty, 2008; Kapur, 2006). Thereby, the human rights regime creates a dichotomy between the Western embracement and the non-Western violation of human rights (Mutua, 2008). This dichotomy neglects human rights violations in Western states and disregards the complicity of the latter with the former (Chowdhry, 2005).

Deliberations within UN human rights for a highlight fault lines characterized by regional, substantial, and strategic alliances, not simply Western versus non-Western states. Human rights activists and diplomats from the Global South use the human rights framework to strengthen their demands. In a recent example, a group of non-Western states initiated a working group dedicated to drafting a binding treaty for corporate responsibility for human rights. The group was led by Ecuador and South Africa, and supported by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Kenya, Namibia, and Peru, among others, as well as by NGOs from all parts of the world. Although their proposal was opposed by the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, and the European Union, they were successful in that the UN Human Rights Council founded an intergovernmental working group (Mende, 2017) that published its Zero Draft in 2018. — Janne Mende, Department of International Relations, Institute of Political Science, Justus Liebig University


Ahmed Shaheed gives some historical context...

Fifty-eight countries assembled in 1948 to affirm their “faith in the dignity and worth of all persons” in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, wherein a framework for preserving that dignity and fostering respect for its worth was offered. Among these states were, African, Asian, and Latin American countries. Thirty-seven states were associated with Judeo-Christian traditions; 11 Islamic; six Marxist; and four identified as being associated with Buddhist-Confucian traditions.

...It was Egyptian delegate, Omar Lutfi, who proposed that the UDHR reference the “universality” of human rights

...social and economic rights were placed on the agenda as a result of pushes from the Arab States and the Soviet bloc, respectively.

...the Soviet bloc, which demanded more emphasis on socio‐economic rights than referenced in the document

...the UDHR was formed with major influence from non-Western states, thereby giving it legitimacy as a truly universally-applicable charter to guide humanity’s pursuit of peace and security.

...states like Chile, Jamaica, Argentina, Ghana, the Philippines and others were vanguards for the advancement of concepts such as “protecting,” in addition to “promoting” human rights.

In 1963, for example, fourteen non-Western UN member states requested that the General Assembly include a discussion on the Violation of Human Rights in South Viet-Nam on its agenda, alleging that the Diem regime had been perpetuating violations of rights of Vietnamese Buddhists in the country

in 1967, a cross-regional group of states from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean secured the adoption of two commission resolutions, establishing the first two Special Procedure mandates: the Ad-Hoc Working Group of Experts on southern Africa and the Special Rapporteur on Apartheid. The special procedures mechanism was thus established. Both resolutions were adopted by a vote, with most Western countries abstaining. — Dr. Ahmed Shaheed - UN Special Rapporteur — Isaac

↪neomac
Don't try to change the subject.

You tried to imply that being "free" to become a political refugee means one is not being forced - a truly vile statement. — Tzeentch

The subject is you not the refugees. "I asked you for clarifications: the idea of being "forced" suggests me the idea that you can not free yourself from something which you find undesirable. So if you live in the West and you do not like it, what is preventing you from leaving it?"
So when you wrote: "Being free to flee from political malpractice somehow means one was never forced to undergo it?", I thought you as an avg Westerner were comparing your fate in the West with the fate of the refugees from non-Western country, which I find laughable.
If you were talking about something else, I couldn't get it from your answers.

Can you clarify how you're measuring "economic, infrastructural, human, political damage”? — Isaac

Well, I’m not measuring anything myself. I rely on public stats one can easily find online from official or credible sources. Surely it’s difficult to assess the overall global impact of a war that is still ongoing, with short and long terms effects, considering also that war can inflict direct damages on any material and social dimension. But also in this case the internet can help: https://news.un.org/pages/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GCRG_2nd-Brief_Jun8_2022_FINAL.pdf
However the crucial point is not the numbers per se, but the fact that all these damages resulted from the decision of a single individual to start a war in defiance of the American led Western hegemony. And it is precisely the geopolitical significance of this war to the global order that magnifies the importance of any material and human damage caused by this war, especially from the Western prospective. And rightly so.

I'm not talking about astrology, I'm talking about experts in their field. — Isaac

I simply mean that neither position is contradicted by overwhelming evidence to the contrary and each position is supported in the field of qualified experts. Basic minimum standards. I didn't think this would be complicated. — Isaac

I see. And who are the “experts in their field” arguing that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”?
Who are the “experts in their field” arguing that Ukraine would NOT have a better chance to grow in terms of civil rights within the western sphere of influence (e.g. by joining NATO and EU) than within the Russian sphere of influence?
And by “arguing” I mean employing actual cold-blooded “experts in their field” arguments, not expressing wishes or voicing propaganda slogans.

In technical fields it ought also have support from at least some experts in that field. There's nothing controversial to argue with here. — Isaac

Well, we might still disagree on how to asses experts. And even on how one cites experts.

A fixed pool of evidence can support multiple theories since any given pool of evidence supporting a theory is not exhaustive of all the evidence there is. — Isaac

I don’t really see how this hypothetical scenario helps you here. First of all, you didn’t offer any argument showing that the same fixed pool of evidences can support both the claim that Russia is military performing well and failing to perform well on the battlefield, or both that surrendering to Russia is better for Ukraine than to keep fighting and vice versa, or both that Ukraine wants to keep fighting and it doesn’t. On the contrary, the divergence typically starts with a reference to different set of evidences: e.g. if I talk about the deaths in Ukraine, you talk about the deaths in Yemen; if I talk about the Ukrainian popular support to Zelensky you talk about the philo-Russian views in Crimea and Donbas, if I talk about the improvements of ex-Soviet joining NATO and EU republics in terms of human rights, you talk about some plans to boost human rights in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Kenya, Namibia, and Peru. The alternative is often to discredit the evidences with claims like “it’s nothing more than propaganda”, or my capacity of reading the evidence (I’m cherrypicking or my own evidence contradicts my own claims).
Secondly, if our positions were really in the situation you described, there are still rational requirements that could constrain the number of possible theories: 1. Cognitive costs: a cognitively more economic theory is preferable to a more cognitively expensive if the same have equal explanatory power 2. Explanatory/predictive power when widening the range of evidences (in physics a certain set of evidences is good to support both newtonian physics and relativity, but a wider range of evidences supports one and not the other) 3. Congruence with a wider range of other supported theories in related domains.
But we didn’t really go into any such assessments: for example how is your position fitting into a sensible geopolitical theory? Mearsheimer’s views or Isolationist views could be useful to blame the US for this war, smart choice. But are they useful to support your claim that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”? I deeply doubt that.

You're not discriminating between rational and irrational, for Christ's sake. You're not God. You're discriminating between reasons you prefer and reasons preferred by others. You not agreeing with a set of reasons doesn't render them "irrational", epistemic peers disagree, it's quite normal and doesn't require one party to have lost the power of rational thought. — Isaac

One can still discriminate between rational and irrational without being God (you too try hard to do it [1]). Besides this is necessary if one cares to choose rationally. Disagreements are normal of course but often they are due to the fact that we fail to discriminate rational and irrational convictions: so it’s not always about preferences as you put it, it’s also about intelligibility and compliance to shareable rational standards. Unfortunately we may fail on that more often than what we could hope, because we are cognitively/morally limited creatures and dramatic political events can easily push all of us out of our cognitive/moral comfort zone. Once again: I’m not interested in assessing people here, just in their arguments, and I don’t care if you think otherwise. So feel free to play dumb all you want.

Or...we could read posts like grown ups and assume that not everything has to contain moral condemnation of Russia. — Isaac

If you want to talk about war crimes for the war in Ukraine, there is an entry in wikipedia that summarises the situation better than that single Amnesty article could, that’s all. And if your objective was to provide a source without “a moral condemnation of Russia”, I’m afraid that article isn’t a big help once you read it carefully.

[1]

Yes. There's no need to start over. Your reasoning is flawed for the reasons boethius has already given - You have failed to take any account of the costs. It's insane to propose a course of action based only on the potential benefits without even holding a view on whether they outweigh the potential costs. — Isaac

if our Western purported facts and moral opinions are absolutely "true" (this was the premise of my argument, that we Westerners have the truth) it's still important, even under these conditions of being ultimate arbiters of truth, to understand how other people elsewhere see things, even if it's not true, for the purposes of decision making. — boethius

For example, the West genuinely seemed to believe that the massive sanctions (that US policy-wonks kept calling "the nuclear option" for years) would destroy the Russian economy as the whole world would follow them. It seemed of genuine surprise to the US and European administrations that nearly the entire rest of the world noped out on those sanctions and the Russian economy was not destroyed.
Western politicians and western media then just basically ignored the issue. — boethius

I find your observation pertinent but not enough to support the claim “the central geo-political question of this war is the challenge to Western moral leadership” for 3 reasons:
First of all, notice that this propaganda battle is an asymmetric battle which is essentially fought within the West, because in anti-Western authoritarian regimes, the power of the anti-western propaganda is overwhelming wrt the pro-western propaganda (and add to the level of censorship, also the language barrier), hence the importance of the foreign minorities living in the West to spread pro-Western propaganda in anti-Western authoritarian regimes. Now as long as those minorities are already enough supportive of the Western propaganda, the West doesn’t need to push on the pro-West propaganda harder.
Secondly, one might think that since in the West we live in democracy the West is too vulnerable to anti-Western propaganda by authoritarian regimes. Yet during a war anti-Western propaganda machine is easier to constrain through censorship of foreign infowar channels, disinfestation of foreign agents in politics and media, and/or less resources from the authoritarian regimes to invest in the propaganda machine in the West. Besides the more bluffs of the official anti-Western scaremongering propaganda are called out by the West, the less effective the anti-Western propaganda becomes. Consequently, the battle propaganda becomes a less critical front for Western governments.
Thirdly, and most importantly, talking of moral-leadership and related morally-loaded vocabulary is a way for politicians and media to appeal to the masses, not really to directly address other decision makers, allies or competitors. And since power (not propaganda) is at the core of geopolitical struggles, what really matters is to impact the view of the decision makers, not necessarily the masses’ views. Then the decision makers can tell people whatever they find instrumental in bridging the gap between propaganda and reality, or simply ignore it and rely on people’s forgetfulness.
That’s why even if your observation is pertinent, I wouldn’t overemphasise the role and impact of such propaganda battle. The fact that you do shows more about your personal investment in that battle, then the centrality of the question itself.

↪neomac
The fact that I have lived here all my life and people should not be forced to flee their home as a result of political malpractice? Hello? — Tzeentch

Hello, indeed I never heard people being forced to flee their homes just “as a result of political malpractice”: usually people are forced to flee their homes for reasons like somebody bombed my house, or the government is killing people if they don’t wear headscarf as the morality police requires, or life here is so shitty that I’m ready to cross a sea on an overcrowded and unsafe boat in the middle of the night to god knows where instead of remaining here. So… interesting, I’ll add that one too to my list.
Now that you are forced to flee your home where would you like to go live: Russia, China or Iran? Did you start browsing some brochures?

That's not really clarified matters - something 'causing' Putin doesn't make sense. so I thought you meant that nothing else in that list is causing as much damage as Putin... but then you denied that too. So I'm at a loss. — Isaac

I’ll give it another try then: "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' are causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that one single subject (namely, Putin) is causing”. Better now?
I denied the substantial equivalence of what I wrote with the ways you rephrased it: "the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now" or "Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is”. I challenge you to argue against my actual claims, not against the caricature of my claims.

But such assessments vary - different people reach different conclusions. — Isaac

Sure, there are people believing in astrology or magic, after all. So what? Here, I’m not interested in discussing doxastic surveys, I’m interested in discussing reasons wrt rational standards intelligible to me.

I'm not claiming your position is irrational. You are claiming mine is. You disputed my position, not the other way round. If the best you've got is that your position is plausible, then we have no disagreement. — Isaac

Additionally, I don’t even understand your claim that my position and your position are both plausible. What do you mean by “plausible”? Wrt what? You didn’t provide any sharable method to assess the plausibility of different position in absolute or relative terms. And it’s even hard to guess it from the way you question my claims, because they practically amount to random accusations (like cherry picking, lack of imagination, lack of support from certain sources, confusion, lacking basic concepts, etc.) or strawman arguments or labelling (like adolescent positivism). Besides, why on earth would you still claim that my position is plausible after questioning all the reasons I have to hold my position and without providing better ones?

Well then we probably have very little to talk about. I assume my interlocutors share such concerns. If not, then our differences are probably more to do with irreconcilable differences in values. — Isaac

A part from the fact that one assesses rational expectations even in this case, my question is: would our positions be still both plausible in case of irreconcilable differences in values?

There are no historical periods in which the West didn’t meddle in regional conflicts while at the same time mounting a multi-billion dollar campaign to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world — neomac


So because it's never happened before, it can't happen. Well. It's a good job you weren't around in the early twentieth century pointing out that never before had all the nations of the world got together to form a single organisation for co-operation and diplomacy. They'd have shelved the whole project.
Seriously? "If it hasn't happened in the past it can't happen". — Isaac

I addressed the rest of your objection when talking about human creativity in history. — neomac
You really didn't. — Isaac

As a starter, attributing to me the claim “if it hasn't happened in the past it can't happen”, would be like me attributing to you the claim “if it hasn't happened in the past it can happen”, both are strawman arguments. As far as I’m concerned, expectations however rational may turn out to be false, and however irrational (like hopes and wishful thinking) may turn out to be true. Yet the discrimination between rational and irrational expectations remains and is relevant for my decision process.
The other point is that rational expectations based on historical events can still account for human creativity (in history) to some extent, so they do not lead to believe that humans can not be conscious agents of disruptive socio-political changes. Indeed history is rich of cases where disruptive technologies or new socio-political arrangements were consciously implemented, so one should take into account that too to formulate rational expectations. In order to give a rational account for that one should still check/show how past regularities can fit or be exploited to trigger the disruptive change: e.g. to accounting for the end of slavery in the US, one might consider the interplay of economic dynamics, religious beliefs, demographic factors, technological innovations and skilled/ambitious political elites that made this event likely. In a similar vain, we can try to account for the emergence of disruptive historical phenomena in the present or in the future to guide our poltical choices. However you didn’t present any such analysis to support your claim that “Western countries should ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”. So nothing rationally challenging in there.

Being free to flee from political malpractice somehow means one was never forced to undergo it? Interesting logic. — Tzeentch

I asked you for clarifications: the idea of being "forced" suggests me the idea that you can not free yourself from something which you find undesirable. So if you live in the West and you do not like it, what is preventing you from leaving it?

Why forced? Westerners are free to migrate to Russia, China, Iran and live there.

Is Russia bullying Ukraine ... or has NATO been trying to bully Russia these past decades?
Is Ukraine standing up to Russia ... or is Russia standing up to NATO?
Is Russia humiliated because they didn't win in 3 days against a military waging continuous war in Donbas, supplied and trained and advised by NATO with US intelligence? Or is Russia humiliating NATO by taking Crimea and then taking the land bridge to Crimea and surviving sanctions and building an alternative payment system? — boethius

The central geo-political question of this war is the challenge to Western moral leadership. — boethius

the European support for the war in Ukraine is entirely moral condemnation based and in contradiction to any realpolitik view of the situation by most European countries. — boethius

What you are talking about is at best a propaganda battle (which you are deeply engaged in, by the way, given the way you are caricaturing it), not the central geo-political question. Propaganda is just one tool of the geopolitical game, with costs, limits and unintended consequences.
Besides the propaganda battle is essentially played in the West because in authoritarian regimes there is less tolerance for views conflicting with the government propaganda (so it's another form of asymmetric war since foreign and hostile powers can more easily infiltrate the Western "market" of ideas).
If you are a Westerner, it's a bit puzzling to see you spit on the dish where you are eating from. But, a part from that, do as you like of course.

Better...? — Isaac

Better but not fair. That's better and more fair:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

[There are] no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin" — neomac
...doesn't make grammatical sense. I've had to do some charitable reading. Why don't you try again to formulate what you're saying. — Isaac

Unfortunately there was a typo: "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' are causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin”.

The latter doesn't follow from the former. First you talk about the rational constraint on formulating what one ought to do (that it must fall within the bounds of what one can do), then you proceed to talk about likelihoods. Neither Kant, nor any rational argument prescribes that what one ought to do is connected to what is likely to succeed. — Isaac

Fair observations, hence my warning (“Aside from how one wants to analyse it”). First of all, the reference to Kant was just introductory, not a commitment to Kant’s views. Secondly, and most importantly, my claim is that rational “oughts” (as in “X ought to do Y”) should be constrained by what one “can”, to the best of our knowledge of course. To say the least: “can” must be identified/assessed in broadly logical terms. One can not smell a number, or read and not read a book. How about physics? Is it rational to prescribe someone to go faster than the speed of light? No, because he can’t according to laws of physics. How about chemistry or biology? Again I find prescriptions grounded on expectations that violate laws of chemistry or biology irrational. Should we stop here? I don't see why. Indeed there are salient empirical regularities also in human & social sciences: psychology, sociology, economy, anthropology, history and geopolitics, according to which we can assess what individuals, collectives, States can do. So by “likelihood” I was referring to such assessments. Examples of these are Mearsheimer’s geopolitical claims: “the structure of the international system forces countries concerned about their security to compete with each other for power.” or “the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony in their region of the world, while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region” . Now I don’t know if they are true (maybe even the laws of physics we believe to have identified will be proved wrong one day, how the hell would I know?) but I take such geopolitical claims seriously, and not because Mearshaimer said it, but because history as far as I know supports it enough and Mearshaimer’s theory turned out to have some predictive power too. Now how about the claim “Western countries can ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”, what are the historical evidences or geopolitical actual dynamics that would support it? I really see none, and for sure none that would seriously challenge Mearshaimer’s (or American isolationists’, for that matter!) claims.

So if I consider supplying arms to Ukraine is very unlikely to yield any humanitarian improvement, then we ought not do it? — Isaac

For a starter, in your prescription you are talking about what “we ought”, so if you are including me in that “we ought” then no, of course, because I’m not concerned with “humanitarian improvement” in such generic terms.

my answers would be “unlikely” for all — neomac
Except that...
that may depend on the issue — neomac — Isaac

Fair observation, hence my warning (“But here some additional clarifications” in between the 2 previous claims of mine). The second claim was not meant to disclaim but to restrain the scope of the first claim: there are interested immigrant minorities living in Western countries that welcome Western meddling in their original country’s affairs e.g. to support Ukrainians and Iranian protesters and I offered some pertinent evidence for this.
What is also interesting to me in those cases is that they do it in the direction that I would welcome of course, which unfortunately is not always the case: e.g. Trita Parsi and Farnaz Fassihi are widely suspected by Iranian protesters to be covert pro-Iranian regime lobbyists in the US.

Seriously? "If it hasn't happened in the past it can't happen". — Isaac

That’s a caricature of my view. Besides I previously warned you that I’m taking into account the limits of historical evidence [1]. My point concerns a non-negligible rational constraint for cognitively fallible and historical creatures as human beings are. In general, when/if things do not go as expected we could find a better theory to guide our expectations, instead of getting rid of any theory. Concerning the power of human creativity in history (as undeniably expressed in the technological progress and in the evolution of social institutions), I limit myself to observe that rational expectations can rely on human creativity only to the extent that its activity falls within the known regularities. How so? As planned technological progress is grounded on original/smarter ways to exploit natural laws by people who have the means, see how, and want to do this, so planned socio-political progress is grounded on original/smarter ways to exploit human and social regularities (often in addition to technological progress) by people who have the means, see how, and want to do this. And I’m afraid that nobody here can be qualified as such.

This just confuses 'ought' with 'is'. You're describing the way the world is, not the way it ought to be. Following your principles no progress would ever be made — Isaac

There is no such a confusion at all. Here is why: from the single premise “X should do Y” we can not logically conclude that “X can do Y”, nor we can logically conclude that “X should NOT do Y” from the single premise “X can NOT do Y”. Failing to acknowledge this amounts to a categorial confusion between 'ought' and ‘is’.
However from the 2 premises “if X should do Y then X can do Y” (which is not an empirical claim but a rational requirement) and “X can NOT do Y”, then we can logically conclude that “X should NOT do Y”. Failing to acknowledge this amounts to poor logical skills. So it's not advisable for you to insist on this.
I addressed the rest of your objection when talking about human creativity in history.

[1]

broad geopolitical considerations and historical evidences (which, notice, change over time: before the nuclear bombing of Japan there was no previous case to compare to) would offer clearer and affordable guidance under uncertainty, in addition to experts feedback and daily news of course. — neomac

Then I return to being completely at a loss as to your argument. It seems to be little more than "Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is" — Isaac

Oh, you see “Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is” as equivalent to "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin"?! Coz I don’t: in my claim I didn't talk about "biggest threat to civilisation". So far just more strawman arguments.

they seem completely unrelated to the point at hand. I'm disputing your claim the the Western world ought to help Ukraine best Russia by military force. — Isaac

Do you know the famous Kantian claim that “ought implies can”? Aside from how one wants to analyse it, my conviction is that a rational “ought” (as in “X ought to do Y”) must fall within what a subject “can”. Therefore rational expectations about what individuals, collectives and states likely can do are key to formulate rational oughts. In other words, I take “ought”-claims grounded on very “unlikely” expectations about individuals, collectives and states to be implausible and irrational. BTW I already made similar claims.
Now concerning the questions I addressed to you: my answers would be “unlikely” for all except the last one which is also crucial because if all authoritarian regimes would more likely resort to supplying weapons than using sanctions/diplomacy or in addition to using sanctions/diplomacy, and sanctions/diplomacy don’t turn to be effective as supplying weapons, then it could be very damn handicapping to just keep using sanctions/diplomacy against authoritarian regimes. But here some additional clarifications:

How likely is that Western citizens members of ethnic minorities (say Ukrainians, Iranians, Taiwanese) will see regional conflicts (like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Iranian revolts against the Iranian regime, the China's claims over Taiwan) as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in? — neomac

Moderately likely. — Isaac

Well that may depend on the issue, I can grant you that much. But knowing the example of the American Jewish community lobbying for the American support to Israel, it’s hardly surprising to find grass-root, high profile or even institutional lobbying activities from other minorities, including Ukrainians (https://www.theamericanconservative.com/congress-and-ukraines-relentless-lobbyists/) and even Russian activists (see the anti-Putinist Garry Kasparov). Among the Iranians one can find many popular anti-regime Iranian expat activists: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Hamed Esmaeilion, Masih Alinejad, Nazanin Boniadi. Here an example of how pro-Ukrainian and pro-Iranians protests united recently in London : https://globalnews.ca/news/9201763/london-ont-ukraine-war-support-rally/

How likely is that Western military and/or geopolitical experts (like Mearsheimer or Kissinger) will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in, especially when allies, strategic partners and Great Powers hostile to the West are involved? — neomac

Moderately likely, there's a range of opinion from isolationists to full on hawks. — Isaac

That’s unlikely even for isolationist (“Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entanglement in military alliances and mutual defense pacts. In its purest form, isolationism opposes all commitments to foreign countries including treaties and trade agreements” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism) if the American National interest is at stake (e.g. America was isolationist until it joined WW2). And here is the explanation Mearsheimer could offer [1].
At best you could say that Russia is not perceived as a serious threat to the American national interest by some American military and/or geopolitical experts. But evidently they aren’t very influential since American anti-Russian stance persisted under different American administrations (even despite Trump).

How likely is that historians would find historically plausible to expect that Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts? — neomac

Pretty likely. — Isaac

There are no historical periods in which the West didn’t meddle in regional conflicts while at the same time mounting a multi-billion dollar campaign to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world (here a little reminder from the history of the US https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars). Not to mention the well known failures of foreign aid campaigns from the West. Or the failures of anti-Western forces (Islamic revolution and Communist revolution) to implement a better alternative to the Western social model, especially wrt implementation of human rights.
But you are absolutely free to imagine otherwise, of course.

Of course, I could continue: how likely that the Western Europeans will support American isolationism and say farewell to American military protection? How likely is that Westerners complying to Russian demands will not bolster other authoritarian regimes’ regional ambitions? How likely is that authoritarian regimes antagonising the West will not take a useful lesson if Russian nuclear threats scared the West away? And I didn’t even need to talk about the military-industrial complex or the big finance or the big tech yet.

In conclusion, as long as your “oughts” are grounded on unlikely expectations about how individuals, collectives and states behave, your “oughts” are irrational. And since a world where Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts, is grounded more on your wild imagination than on what one can see as likely from history or geopolitics, then neither your expectation nor your prescription is plausible. Period.

[1] My own realist theory of international relations says that the structure of the international system forces countries concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate goal of every major state is to maximize its share of world power and eventually dominate the system. In practical terms, this means that the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony in their region of the world, while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region.
To be more specific, the international system has three defining characteristics. First, the main actors are states that operate in anarchy, which simply means that there is no higher authority above them. Second, all great powers have some offensive military capability, which means they have the wherewithal to hurt each other. Third, no state can know the intentions of other states with certainty, especially their future intentions. It is simply impossible, for example, to know what Germany’s or Japan’s intentions will be toward their neighbors in 2025.
In a world where other states might have malign intentions as well as significant offensive capabilities, states tend to fear each other. That fear is compounded by the fact that in an anarchic system there is no night watchman for states to call if trouble comes knocking at their door. Therefore, states recognize that the best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that another state will attack it. No Americans, for example, worry that Canada or Mexico will attack the United States, because neither of those countries is strong enough to contemplate a fight with Uncle Sam.

https://nationalinterest.org/article/say-goodbye-taiwan-9931

I’m not convinced that “the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now”. — neomac


There are no "local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty" causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin. — neomac — Isaac

Oh, you see “the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now” is the same as "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin"?! I don't: in my claim I didn't just talk about deaths and misery, and "single" wasn't qualifying the "costs".

Roughly, yes. Where by 'meddle' you mean 'supply arms to'. — Isaac

Now:
How likely is that Western citizens members of ethnic minorities (say Ukrainians, Iranians, Taiwanese) will see regional conflicts (like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Iranian revolts against the Iranian regime, the China's claims over Taiwan) as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that Western commodity traders and industry who partnered with some state muddled in some regional conflict, will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that the piece of Western economy relying on Western commodity trades and industry will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that Western political representatives and media industry who feed on ideological, religious and national differences and global threats or opportunities will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in?
How likely is that Western military and/or geopolitical experts (like Mearsheimer or Kissinger) will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in, especially when allies, strategic partners and Great Powers hostile to the West are involved?
How likely is that historians would find historically plausible to expect that Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts?
How likely is that for any of the above subjects “meddling in regional conflicts” equates to everything except 'supply arms to’?
How likely is that for authoritarian regimes (like Russia, Iran and China) their “meddling in regional conflicts” equates to everything except 'supply arms to’?

If you're seriously convinced that the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now — Isaac

I’m not convinced that “the war in Ukraine is the single highest toll of avoidable deaths and misery in the world right now”. But if your imagination tells you otherwise, what can we do about it? Right?

A few million are currently at severe risk of starvation (according to UNICEF) in Afghanistan.

Off the top of my head, something like 10-20,000 are killed in the Myanmar conflict in a year, a few thousand a year every single year for decades in the Mexican war on drugs. The US supported war in Yemen has killed over a million with a similar annual death toll to Myanmar.

A failure to tackle air pollution kills 100,000 or more people every year in India. Even here in England there are something like 100-150,000 deaths a year from all causes that could be avoided through public health interventions.

There's wars in Ethiopia and Somalia which, coupled with famines, cause thousands of deaths every year. Half a million children are at risk of death from the latest drought and that's barely even made the inside pages of most newspapers, nearly twice that in Sudan… — Isaac

is your conviction that we, the West, should “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world while avoiding to meddle in regional conflicts around the world like in Yemen and Ukraine? Is that it?

Lots of global events cause that level of damage - from local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty... Do we mount a multi-billion dollar campaign against each? No. — Isaac

There are no "local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty" causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin.

We make judgments based on the details of the circumstances we find ourselves in rather than sweeping generalisations based on very tangentially related situations in the past. — Isaac

Who is "We" ? Who are those who make "sweeping generalisations based on very tangentially related situations in the past." ? Why "sweeping"? Why "very tangentially"?
Or you simply mean that one doesn't need history when imagination is enough?

If Russia are useless at invading places they cannot at the same time be a serious threat to any great number of such places. One cannot be both a global threat, and impotent. With what power would such a threat be realised? — Isaac

That's a crappy (N.B. not ridiculous just crappy) argument.

• Russia is failing this war but it was able to cause lots of damage at different levels to Ukraine and the West. So the possibility that Russia is in no condition to win the war, doesn’t imply that Russia can still cause lots of damage (economic, infrastructural, human, political).
• Lots of people prefer evidence over imagination (not your case of course): now we have evidence of Russians’ failures.

There is a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, there again an example from history how these can end. — Isaac

Sure, Russia could withdraw from Crimea and Donbas as much as Isreal withdrew from the Sinai peninsula this could be a step toward peace.

:up:

'Russia is evil and must be stopped at all costs' and 'Russia is useless'. Putting aside for now the fact that these two narratives aren't even coherent (who cares about that anymore) — Isaac

Show the incoherence.

The world changes and we're living the consequences of a failure to realise that. — Isaac

At any point of history one can claim that bot that the world is changing and that we are living the consequences of a failure to realise that for anybody by anybody. You included. Now what?

Justin Bronk (Senior Research Fellow for Combat Airpower and Technology at RUSI) on Russian nuclear threats:

Exactly!

The question is how much truly does the Russian accept the inconveniences of the war for the imperial gain of Novorossiya? How much do they support the war? The Crimean annexation did genuinely excite Russians. It was bloodless and there was support for it in the Crimean population (if not a majority, but anyway). The annexation of these new territories was a Stalinist theatre, especially when Putin is losing ground in them. — ssu

Indeed, a wide Russian support to Putin’s expansionism is likely to be conditional on mass mobilisation (especially of ethnic Russians), otherwise why would Putin be so late and cautious to call for a wider military mobilisation?
Yet I guess that the insurgence of the military to be more decisive for Putin’s destitution and the push for more liberal political reforms than the Russian population insurgence per se. That is why military humiliation on the battlefield (including the killing of generals) combined with Putin’s disposition to put all the blame on and replace military leaders for military failures, is the right recipe for military defection or conspiracy from the military subordinates and high ranks.