“Evil” in a moral sense? — neomac
No, 'evil' in a colloquial sense… — Tzeentch
“Colloquial”? Not sure to understand. Is, for example, covid evil in a colloquial sense?
How about examples of colloquially “necessary evil”? Vaccins are necessary evil for unnecessary evil covid?
...so why do you think “neocon foreign policy” deserves the title of “primary” cause of this war? — neomac
Because this conflict started when the United States (led by the neocon foreign policy establishment) expressed its desire to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, and they never over the course of some 15 years took Russia's objections seriously. — Tzeentch
That’s a very problematic claim for several reasons:
1 - the United States expressed their desire also in 2008, but grievances about the US involvement in Ukraine and the Soviet Union’s ex-sphere of influence started well before 2008 and before Putin. On the other hand, in 2008 it turned out that Western countries were reluctant to let Ukraine join NATO no matter what the American desire was. Besides the conflict with Russia didn’t turn into a “real” conflict until 2014, while the Westerners were still against Ukraine joining NATO (Russia’s could enjoy the support of France, Germany, Hungary, Turkey to veto this). Not to mention that we had Trump antagonising the West more than Russia. So there seem to be many starts here, and many conflicts involving the US’s desire to expand its sphere of influence in Ukraine which anyway weren’t sufficient to let Ukraine join NATO (and that also proves that the West took Russia’s security concerns seriously to the point of refusing Ukraine within NATO). BTW why did it take Russia so long to invade Ukraine if the provocation was so obvious and intolerable for 15 years?
2 - The idea that the conflict started with the US expressing “its desire to incorporate Ukraine into NATO” makes likely sense in Russian strategic perspective, not in the Ukrainian, American or Western perspective, because the West and Ukraine do not share Russia's strategic perspective as much as they don’t share the Russian national interest. For Ukraine, Russia may have likely started the conflict by protesting over its sovereignty and territorial integrity. For the US, the conflict may have likely started when Russia protested against the Western-led world order since the fall of Soviet Union. You can blame it on the neocon agenda as much as I can blame it on Russian imperialism which is much older than neocon agenda. And Russia couldn’t possibly expect that the US as the hegemon would refrain from “expressing DESIRES” because Russia demanded it, especially when Russia wasn’t still that scary. ESPECIALLY if the US wasn’t hostile toward Russia, because it offered globalization in return which empowered Russia (and made it scary as it is now) way more than the threat of Ukraine joining NATO weakened Russia economically and militarily. Am I right? Russia too didn't perceive NATO as significantly hostile since there NATO there were conjoint exercises with the Russians against Islamic terrorism (
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_103663.htm) as the greatest security threat for the West and Russia. Right?
3 - We have repeatedly been told that Russians’ grievances started with the broken promise over NATO expansion, so by the same logic should we expect Russia will invade the ex-Warsaw pact states and ex-Soviet Union republics? Or should we just roll back NATO as requested by Putin in his diplomatic negotiations with the West to respect Russia’s strategic concerns seriously (
https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-unveils-security-guarantees-says-western-response-not-encouraging-2021-12-17/)?
4 - I still don’t see the reason why you keep talking about “primary cause”. A possible alternative could be “primary reason“ instead of “primary cause”, couldn’t it? It would make sense to talk about primary reason if we take incorporating Ukraine into NATO as the primary security concern to Russia under certain assumptions (among which we must include Russia’s “hegemonic ambitions”). So I do wonder why you keep talking about “primary cause” instead of “primary reason”. Also a rapist “primary cause” for rape may be the raped teenager was dressed sexy. If somebody said "the teenager started her rapist’s aggression", would make this claim sense to you? What would be the point of making such claim exactly?
So states do not enjoy moral rights but they enjoy legal rights like right to self-defence? How so? — neomac
States are not moral actors, so they have no moral rights. Individuals have moral rights.
And states obviously have legal rights because virtually all states on the world have signed the UN charter and thus recognize the legitimacy of international law, which includes a right to national self-defense. — Tzeentch
I’m not sure you understood my question: “How come that the abstractness of the notion of ‘state’ allows a state to enjoy legal rights but not moral rights?”
Given your input, I can reformulate it as follows: states as abstract entities (which I charitably understand as “legal institutions”, am I wrong?) can’t possibly sign UN charters nor recognise the legitimacy of international law by themselves, while individual agents as state representatives can and do. Who signs is a concrete individual human being or a bunch of concrete individual human beings, not an abstract legal entity, right? But individuals as state representatives can still be morally and legally accountable, even if that involves an “abstract” institutional entity, right? If so, state representatives (like Putin, Biden, Zelensky) are morally and legally accountable based on acknowledged state rights.
Besides if you acknowledge that Ukraine has a legal right to self-defence and the West is not violating international laws by military supporting Ukraine, what should we do with the “provocation” accusation from Putin which doesn’t look neither moral nor legal, in your views? — neomac
I'm not sure what 'provocation accusation' you're talking about, — Tzeentch
I'm talking about this:
As you probably know, my view is that the Russians were provoked into invading Ukraine. — Tzeentch
It's clear to me that this war was purposefully provoked. — Tzeentch
but what Europe should do is pull the plug on military support for Ukraine. Helping another nation exercise their right to self-defense is only rational if it has a chance of succeeding. There is no such chance in the case of the Ukraine war, and thus Europe should not contribute to the illusion that Ukraine can win this war. Stopping the support will hopefully will bring Ukraine to stop sacrificing its people in vain sooner rather than later — Tzeentch
.
I still don’t get how come you keep talking about what Europe should do, so in normative terms, over legal institutions in other terms than legal. Apparently there are “strategic” normative claims besides “moral” and “legal” (and "colloquial"?), yet it’s not clear how you assess strategic normative claims. To me strategic normative claims in politics of national states should be processed by taking into account national states’ priorities in the long term: for example, Ukraine’s priority is to preserve sovereignty and territorial integrity even at the expense of Russia’s hegemonic ambitions, for Russia is to pursue hegemonic ambitions at the expense of Ukraine’s sovereignty and the US’s hegemony, for the US is to pursue hegemonic ambitions at the expense of its competitors (including Russia). Concerning Europe, AFAIU, the priority is to preserve political stability under American protection (which is why Europeans can sacrifice trade relations with Russia and China).
Besides I don’t know how you assess the chance for success in strategy (especially if military goals must be distinguished from political goals). Does Hamas have any chance of military/political success in fighting Israel’s occupation of Gaza? Is it rational for Palestinians to support Hamas? Why do many foreign states (including Western state) politically, economically and/or military support Palestinians if they have no chance of succeeding? Should Europeans stop financing Palestinians and stop acknowledging Palestine as a sovereign state?
If Ukraine wants to continue throwing its people's lives away, then that's their right. However, Europe should not make itself complicit in such a senseless waste of life. — Tzeentch
How can Europe be “complicit” if European states and EU are just legal entities and Europe is not violating international laws by supporting Ukraine? Are you talking in moral terms?
If it makes sense to them, why do you call it “senseless waste of life”?
Given your military analysis, I understand why you reached your conclusion. Yet I don’t think military analysis suffices to determine political choices. I suspect that it is the other way around. For the good and for the bad. In any case, it is hard to prove that costly choices in the present would repay well in the future. This is the Russian bet anyways and the challenge to the West.
Is Putin’s aggression of Ukraine pure “evil” or just “necessary evil”? — neomac
The war in Ukraine is completely pointless and a shining example of the unnecessary evil of states - all states involved, including the state of Ukraine itself. — Tzeentch
Is this still a strategic claim? Or a “colloquial” claim? Or a “moral” claim? Or a “legal” claim?
Why not in the same way? What is the difference? — neomac
The difference is that Russia tried to find a diplomatic solution, but was snubbed by the Americans on every occasion.
Israel on the other hand did everything it could to prevent a diplomatic solution. — Tzeentch
Is this some colloquial/moral/strategic/legal normative claim or a factual claim? Because if it is a factual claim, it is questionable (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_peace_process). Besides we do not know if diplomatic efforts would work with Russia, since Russia repeatedly threatened and violated Ukrainian’s sovereignty despite all past agreements. Agreements will give Russia the chance to stabilise its conquests and keep destabilising Ukraine.
Besides this shows another difference relevant for diplomatic solutions: Russia is threatening/violating Ukrainian sovereign integrity after repeatedly acknowledging it while Israel didn’t acknowledge Palestine as a sovereign state. The diplomatic solution sought by Russia is grounded on condoning a fundamental international law violation (territorial annexations) which even the Great Satan never dared to commit so far, right?