• PART 01

For example, when Merkel et. al. brag about the Minsk accords being agreed to in bad faith without any intention to implement it in order to "buy time" for Ukraine, it is called reneging. Hopefully that will help you remember the definition. — boethius

Another non-shared assumption. You keep reasoning in non-comparative and historically decontextualised ways. “Bad faith” may be a compelling reason for grievance if there is “good faith” and cooperative attitude on one side, but not in the other. If there is bad faith and unwillingness to cooperate on both sides, “bad faith” is no longer a compelling grievance for either side.
One can try to make such grievances more compelling by reasoning in terms of “who started it?”, proportionality and stakes. Minsk agreements weren’t about Russian sovereignty, but about Ukrainian sovereignty. And if a weaker state is aggressed or threatened in its sovereignty by an unprovoked (=unaggressed) hostile stronger state with a history of “bad faith” in agreements [1] and despite the reciprocal acknowledgement of sovereignty, the weaker state has a compelling reason to play deceptively, especially if the alternative is either escalation or surrender.
Hopefully that will help you remember how your “bad faith” accusation looks rather pointless to me.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked by a reporter if he would join negotiations mediated by Turkey if Russian President Vladimir Putin came to the table, and Zelensky said, "I don't accept it."

Erdogan "knows my view," Zelensky said. "We discussed this before the war. I told him to put Putin at the table for negotiations. 'Can we please do that? We must avert a full-scale war.' But [Erdogan] was not able to do that. Not only him — he is powerful — but he is not able to do it. And now he thinks that he is? Now we can't," Zelensky said Friday.

Zelensky explained why he cannot speak to Putin anymore.

"It is not the same man. There is nobody to talk to there," he said. — CNN


This is called repudiating negotiations.

To try to reinterpret what I say as claiming there was never any negotiations is foolish.

I clearly explain that there was a negotiation, nearly successful by some accounts (but clearly happened, was in the news and everything), and then Zelensky rejected the Russian offer and repudiated further negotiations with statements like the above.

Since even normal people intuit there's something wrong with walking away entirely from the negotiation table (the US is in continuous negotiation with Hamas as we speak), some pressure is put on Zelensky about it so he changes his position to he'll negotiation but only after Russia leaves Ukraine, including Crimea, entirely ... which is not how negotiation works. You negotiate the points of contention before an agreement is made and the exchange value actually occurs; simply demanding the counter-party does whatever you want before negotiating is another way of saying one refuses any negotiation. — boethius

I didn’t state nor suggested nor believe you are “claiming there was never any negotiations”. I claim that you are not interpreting Zelensky’s attitude toward negotiation as a function of past and present circumstances that mould the Ukrainians’ national interest as they understand it. But you have no problem to do it when it’s matter to explain (or justify?) Russian aggression and then blame it completely/mostly/primarily on the US.
Bennett in his often cited interview talks about Zelensky reaching him to mediate with Putin a ceasefire. After the Bucha massacre (while Russian state TV was broadcasting genocidal propaganda against Ukraine), Zelensky was expected to turn down that negotiation as Bennett acknowledged (not surprisingly so from a Israeli representative who knows the political impact of terrorist massacres). Another attempt happened a while later, with the Istanbul Communique (again, out of the Ukrainian initiative), the problem is that, a part of the difficulties to treat the territorial dispute, both Russia and Ukraine seek American security guarantees (which you consider “ornamental” and with “zero meaning”, right prof?) under incompatible conditions. As far as I’ve understood the problem is that Russia wants to be part of the guarantors and this might enable Russia to comfortably sabotage whatever pro-Ukrainian agenda at convenience (as it already happens within the UN), while at this point in history the US intends to turn Russia into a rogue state after its aggression of Ukraine, which includes economic and diplomatic sanctions as long as needed. So whatever negotiation scenario alternative to plain surrender, seems to require foreign security guarantees that do not depend on Zelensky. That’s how diplomatic stalemate becomes likely. And let’s pretend that , in diplomatic parlance, attempts of killing Zelensky are not really the most obvious sign of diplomatic “good faith” or “good will“ from Putin, right?
Announcing ceasefire demands (as the Russia often did) doesn’t prevent any party to keep exploring margins for negotiation through secured diplomatic channels and intermediaries, of course. The point is that after Bucha, repeated failed negotiation attempts, and Zelensky’s refusal to negotiate with Putin by decree still Zelensky’s support among Ukrainians was wide and high up until recently as far as I can tell (https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-751972). So I do not see strong evidence that Zelensky’s attitude toward negotiation goes against Ukrainians’ perceived national interest. Maybe things have changed now.

Second, hand-weaving at hypothetical compensations for the Ukrainian territorial, economic, security losses while abstracting from relevant historical and geopolitical circumstances is a rather weak argument. — neomac


First, it's not hand waiving, it's what negotiation is about: you seek as much compensation as possible from the parties involved in exchange for whatever you're giving up (money, time, apologies, legal claims, paintings, diamonds, leaving town etc.).

So, if there was a deal on the table that was "sufficient" in terms of being preferable to continued warfare, then the only thing to do is attempt to negotiate an even better formulation of the deal but with the aim of ultimately accepting anyways. — boethius

Yes also barter is by definition about exchanging goods without using money. But what if people need money? That’s the point I’m making about the failed negotiation attempts. And I’m questioning the claim that “there was a deal on the table” for the following reason: Russia and Ukraine can agree on whatever ceasefire proposal, but if this proposal requires security guarantees from foreign guarantors, and foreign guarantors are not willing to provide them, then there won’t be a deal.

Furthermore, I am not abstracting away from anything, I have routinely and diligently analyzed the battlefield situation using both my own soldiering experience and training (including training specifically designed for a fight with the Russians and exactly the kind of warfare we've seen play out in Ukraine) as well as analysis available elsewhere, to evaluate Ukraine's chance of a battlefield victory.

My conclusion is basically no chance, due to the specifics on the ground (Ukraine lack of capacities the Russians have and Ukraine lack of quantity, such as artillery, where Ukraine does have comparable capacity: how can anyone expect soldiers to prevail in such circumstances?!).

Therefore, if Ukraine has no chance of a battlefield victory then it should strive to negotiate a peace, using the leverage of being able to do further damage to Russia (when you are a weaker party to a conflict, you're leverage is the ability to inflict damage even with little threat of victory; of course, being able to threaten actually victory is better leverage, but people seek to avoid damage if they can so generally offer concessions to terminate the war sooner rather than later; and even when no concessions are offered, such as unconditional surrender, it is still usually better, for real people under your command, to surrender unconditionally than to fight to the death). — boethius

Not all depends on the battlefield situation, the historical circumstances include past experiences and current geopolitical conditions, how all these factors reinforce cultural trends and shape national interest perception over generations. And no politicians can really abstract from them. Their political history depends on the selective pressure of those factors. So, rationality requirements in the domain of politics can’t reasonably ignore the weight of such factors. And to the extent war is politics by other means, one has to take into account the political aims of all prominent involved parties when assessing battlefield outcomes. For example, the strategy of containment adopted by the US against Soviet Union, and still adopted against Russia in some form, doesn’t require the complete defeat of the enemy, because it may not be necessary, desirable, or even possible.
Concerning your other assumptions, I’d counter that politics is primarily about LEADING people, not about pleasing people. Otherwise people could self-govern themselves as they please, right? Another assumption of mine is that politicians can AT BEST pursue national strategic interests (which will concern also future political administrations and generations). And nobody can reasonably expect political leaders to be capable of infallible, risk free or uncontroversial choices, especially in critical times like during war.
Besides many Ukrainians have all-too personal stakes in this war, also thanks to Russian broad and arbitrary massacres (which add up to the past ones). For every Ukrainian soldier or civilian that has been killed or injured in this war of aggression by Russia, there is potentially an entire social network (starting with relatives and friends) which will personally resent the Russians for that and may crave for revenge until they die. And this emotional trauma will likely nurture also future generations.
So I’ll repeat once more my previous argument: Palestinians, Afghans, Kurds fight for their independence and national identity, for generations, no matter if they are the weaker party to a conflict, no matter if they are instrumental to geopolitical moves of other bigger players. BTW how many Russians, soldiers and civilians, were killed during the great patriotic war, prof?
I find COMPLETELY IRRATIONAL to assess human behaviour based on social standards not grounded on realistic assumptions about human behaviour. Humans value social identity and freedom to the point of fighting for them to death, take revenge for it, mistrust enemies for it, and sacrifice their own individual and collective well-being/safety for it, over decades, over generations. Afghans, Kurds, Palestinians, Israeli, Ukrainians, and Russians keep reminding us that however tragic in itself and disturbing to armchair self-entitled nobodies on the internet, this is a very common hardcore driving factor of human behaviour. To what extent that holds for Ukrainians is up to the Ukrainians to tell. And when Ukrainians will grow tired enough of Zelensky, they may find their ways to get rid of him.

When I say Ukraine should seek compensation from the West in any peace deal for loss of territory, it is because they have the leverage to get that. If they can get compensation from Russia and from the West in a peace deal, that is clearly better than simply compensation from Russia. Of course now, Ukraine has very little leverage.
But at the start of the war, for example, in exchange for accepting a peace along the lines of what Russia proposing, Zelensky could have sought various compensation from the West, in particular Europe that has the most to lose from a larger and longer war: such as a fast track into the EU (which Russia explicitly said they did not oppose, only NATO). — boethius

Ukraine has its security concerns about Russia and if Europeans can’t offer security guarantees to deter Russia’s aggression and political interference, joining the EU (assuming Russia won’t be able to sabotage it) would NOT compensate the Ukrainian security concerns and at the same time will create additional security hazards for the Europeans. Besides as long as the Europeans need the US for their own security (as much as Ukraine) and prioritise security concerns over economic concerns, the Europeans might still be reluctant to question the American leadership at this point in history. Actually this war may buy Europeans time to re-arm and/or press them to re-shape their security strategy.

True, it would be a compromise where Russia is "appeased".

But as I've explained numerous times, the appeasement argument is totally fallacious and demonstrates a total lack of understanding of history.

The appeasement analogy applied to Ukraine would only be remotely similar if it was about chastising Poland for not fighting to the last Polander.

The criticism of appeasement is not levied at the smaller and weaker countries Hitler gobbled up, accusing them of surrendering or cutting deals rather than fighting to their last man and even worman, but rather the criticism of appeasement is levied at the far larger and stronger countries (UK, France, US) that had an actual chance of defeating Hitler.

Avoiding "appeasement" has nothing to do with smaller countries stuck in the middle of the great powers. It is always the same: the strong do as they will, the weak suffer what they must. And so weaker countries can only strive to suffer as little as possible in navigating the rivalry and clashes of the great powers.

A situation I do not approve of, but is created out of the system of international relations—in which the key word is "national" and the nationalism from which those nations spring—and insofar as we have a system of nations then we have more and less powerful nations and among them the "great powers" who do great things – terrible, yes, but great. — boethius

Your counter-argument fails on two grounds: first, my “appeasing argument” was targeting the strategic choices of the West (the US and its allies) wrt Russia aggression of Ukraine, not Ukraine. Indeed, I don’t even see strong evidence that Western propaganda is about “chastising” Ukraine for not fighting to the last Ukrainian. The appeasement argument is about “chastising” the West for not supporting the Ukrainian patriotic fight enough (I myself would lean that way). Something like: “I believe that we have no other choice than giving Ukraine all they need to be successful in their mission to restore their sovereignty and control on their borders: whatever less will be our failure” (https://www.corriere.it/esteri/23_novembre_27/petr-pavel-our-uncertainties-hurt-kiev-s-counteroffensive-396fdc30-8c6e-11ee-8ccd-c15b03fea28c.shtml). The problem for the Ukrainians is however that as long as Ukraine badly needs Western assistance to secure its sovereignty against Russian aggression and oppression, then Ukraine can’t discount Western conditions for such assistance (not surprisingly, Zelensky often appealed to the Western audience not with “help us Ukrainians out of humanitarian concerns“ but “help us because we are fighting for your freedom”). Second, I have no idea why you believe the “appeasement argument” can’t hold also for Ukrainians by the same logic that historical precedents exemplify. Satisfying predatory demands is not only a cost but also a big risk for the victims for two obvious reasons: if it works, predatory demands can be escalated (e.g. if a hacker gains control over your private computer and mobile, and manages to block them to ask you a ransom, you may decide to pay the ransom, but the hacker may later decide to ask you some more). Besides, the benefits coming from their predatory activity can be reinvested to perpetuate/widen predatory activities. So even victims can be compelled to not appease their predators and look for alternative coping strategies, depending on the circumstances. From a historical point of view, I’d also contend that the desire for peace within a community depends on how circumstances wear out or boost collective morale to support rebellion and fight against foreign oppression: humans may value peace at the price of enslavement (as it happened to many Africans) or marginalization (as it happened to many native Indians or Australian aboriginals) by foreign nations, but other communities may live in such conditions that polarized indigenous minorities may emerge and lead more or less complacent/passive majorities to support fight at the price of individual and collective well-being/safety for generations (like Palestinians, Afghans, Kurds), no matter if they are the weaker party to a conflict, no matter if they are instrumental to geopolitical moves of other bigger players. And also the Ukrainian fight against the Russians is generational: Ukrainians allied in the past with the Nazis to fight back Soviet Russia, now they are allying with the West to fight Putin’s Russia. So the “appeasement argument” can apply also to weaker states and be motivated by their own perceived strategic interest.
In any case, even if “weaker countries can only strive to suffer as little as possible in navigating the rivalry and clashes of the great powers” and I don’t know to what extent the Ukrainian morale will hold under external pressure (from Russia and from the West) in the current circumstances, my understanding is still that it’s on the Ukrainians to establish what it means to “strive to suffer as little as possible” and that weaker states are compelled to ally with great powers which they feel enough less oppressive at the price they find tolerable. Not to mention that you just suggested one compelling argument for old-school imperialism: the best chance for weaker states to suffer the least from wars against stronger countries that violate their territorial sovereignty would be to give up on their territorial sovereignty.

The smaller powers stuck in the middle have no interest in fighting to the death for one side or another; one needs really extreme circumstances for that option to be viable.

Now, that such a peace would be potentially "bad" for the West is from a US and Western perspective, not Ukraine's perspective. You are basically giving up the ghost of your position. You are simply taking it as assumed that Ukraine should do whatever the West wants it to do and is in the interest of the West, with no consideration for Ukraine.

And indeed, even if you are correct (which I don't think you are) in assuming any peace between Ukraine and Russia would be good for Russia and bad for the West, that's not an argument that Ukraine shouldn't make peace with Russia; only an argument that the West should not want Ukraine to make peace with Russia — boethius

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I never argued that “Ukraine should do whatever the West wants it to do and is in the interest of the West, with no consideration for Ukraine”. Indeed, you can not quote me claiming this nor saying anything that logically implies this. On the contrary, my understanding is that the political imperative for sovereign states is the pursuit of their national interest, independently from ideology, typology of regime and capabilities (but conditionally on sovereignty claims and acknowledgments). The US should pursue its national interest, Russia should pursue its national interest, Ukraine should pursue its national interest, Israel should pursue its national interest, Iran should pursue its national interest, China should pursue its national interest, Nazi Germany should pursue its national interest, Soviet Union should pursue its national interest, etc. It’s an empirical matter if the national interest of one sovereign state converges or is in conflict with the national interest of another sovereign state. So if “make peace with Russia” is convenient to the Ukrainian national interest, Zelensky has a political imperative to pursue it no matter if the West is against it, obviously. It remains however problematic to establish what goes or should go into Zelensky’s political calculus under given power relations and past experiences, though.
Besides I’m not “assuming ANY peace between Ukraine and Russia would be good for Russia and bad for the West” unless “ANY peace between Ukraine and Russia” equates to surrender to Russian demands (like acknowledgement of annexed territories and no security compensation, which is tantamount to a loss of sovereignty to the Russians). My assumption is that surrender goes against the Ukrainian national interest as it has been understood until now by the Ukrainians themselves. If they changed their mind, that’s their decision to make. Another assumption of mine however is that the West under the American leadership will support Ukraine to avoid surrender for several reasons: reputational costs within the general public (the West abandoned Ukraine, yet another American foreign policy failure, the West lost to Russia, etc.), loss of hegemonic deterrence toward competing world leaders (emboldening competitors like China and anti-American populism, also in the West), so a significantly destabilising blow to the Western world order. And if this is not bad for the West I don’t know what is. But there are other strategic reasons why the US may be compelled to support Ukraine to avoid both surrender and peace (unless that means: Russian complete surrender or, a least, ceasefire agreements compliant with Western world order) and to support freezing the conflict, especially at the prospect of a possible military conflict with China in the next decades. Indeed, weakening Russia through economic and diplomatic sanctions, fixating Russia’s strategic concerns on its Western front instead of engaging in other arenas (like in support of China), cutting economic ties between Europeans and Russia/China (obliging Europeans to look for compensation in the rest of the Rest), and buying time to build up European and Ukrainian military capabilities/readiness may be functional conditions to support American hegemony. It’s also possible that even Trump, if in power, won’t change this trend, not immediately at least. Indeed, the frozen conflict may be exploited as a leverage both against China (e.g. Trump may promise to push for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in exchange for Russia breaking its alliance with China or in exchange for Europe feeding more US economy at the expense of China) and/or against Trump’s political enemies (e.g. Trump may threaten to push for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine if his political enemies in the congress obstruct his policies in other more urgent areas).


[1]
To those who have missed the previous 30 years, here is a short list of the results of negotiations with Russia that it never respected: 1. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Russia agreed to “respect independence, sovereignty, and the existing borders of Ukraine” as well as “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. Breached by Russia invading Crimea in 2014. 2. The Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty of 1997. Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and “reaffirmed the inviolability of the borders” between the two countries. Russia breached it in 2014. 3. The OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999. Russia committed to withdrawing its troops from Moldova’s Transdniestrian region and Georgia until the end of 2002. That never happened. 4. The 2008 Georgia ceasefire agreement following Russian aggression against the country. Russia agreed that “Russian military forces must withdraw to the lines prior to the start of hostilities”. That never happened. 5. The Ilovaysk “Green Corridor” in August 2014 and other “humanitarian” death corridors. Russia pledged to let Ukrainian forces leave the encircled town of Ilovaysk in the east of Ukraine, but instead opened fire and killed 366 Ukrainian troops. In the following years, Russia attacked numerous humanitarian corridors in Syria. 6. The “Minsk” agreements of 2014 and 2015. Russia agreed to cease the fire in the east of Ukraine. There had been 200 rounds of talks and 20 attempts to enforce a ceasefire, all of which the Russian side promptly violated. On February 24th, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 7. The 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russia pledged to “provide maximum assurances regarding a safe and secure environment for all vessels engaged in this initiative." It then hindered the initiative's operation for months before withdrawing unilaterally a year later. NB: I am only focused on deals made with Russia to address specific issues and conflicts. I am not mentioning almost 400 international treaties that Russia has breached since 2014. There are no conclusions to be drawn here, except that no one can seriously use the words "Russia" and "negotiations" in the same phrase. Putin is a habitual liar who promised international leaders that he would not attack Ukraine days before his invasion in February 2022. Russia's tactic has remained consistent in its many wars over the last three decades: kill, grab, lie, and deny. Why would anyone genuinely believe that Russia in 2023 is any different from Russia in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2008, 2014, 2015, and 2022?
https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1724427557016043668

Putin and others have been saying different things to different people at different times AND provide the relevant evidence. — Jabberwock

One more evidence: 02.01.2005 Interview with Sergej Lavrov (Foreign minister of Russia) by the German business newspaper Handelsblatt:

Question: Does the right to sovereignty also mean for Georgia and Ukraine, for example, that Russia would have nothing against their accession to the EU and NATO?

Lavrov: That is their choice. We respect the right of every state - including our neighbors - to choose its own partners, to decide for itself which organization to join. We assume that they will consider for themselves how they develop their politics and economy and which partners and allies they rely on.

https://amp2.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/handelsblatt-interview-mit-aussenminister-lawrow-russland-oeffnet-ukraine-den-weg-in-die-nato/2460820.html

I think for the Ukrainians, the distinction between "conquest" and a "special military operation to demilitarise and denazify" is rather academic. — Echarmion

I'd rather call it pro-Russian propaganda. Indeed, these people have no problems to whine over American imperialism EVEN WHEN American didn't "conquest" anything. While they refrain from talking about Russian imperialism when the territorial conquest actually happens before they eyes while they are denying it. The intellectual misery is cosmic.
BTW here is a useful definition of imperialism from Wikipedia:
Imperialism is the practice, theory or attitude of maintaining or extending power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing not only hard power (military and economic power) but also soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more or less formal empire. While related to the concepts of colonialism, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.
And then ask them: is Russia imperialist according to that definition?
Besides the assumption that politics is about political leaders' intentions (which they wish to be more able to detect than involved political leaders) is rather myopic, also from their guru Mearsheimer's point of view . But apparently self-entitled anonymous nobodies on the internet want to teach politicians how to do their job.

Recently brought to my attention was a report written by former UN Assistant Secretary-General Michael von der Schulenberg, German professor Hajo Funke and retired formerly highest-ranking German general Harald Kujat. — Tzeentch

Where is the link to the report?

Contrary to Western interpretations, Ukraine and Russia agreed at the time that the planned NATO expansion was the reason for the war. — Tzeentch

Contrary to Western interpretations?! Nobody doubts that this is Putin’s declared reason for his aggression. The questions is: Ukraine and Russia agreed at the time that the planned NATO expansion was a LEGITIMATE reason for Putin’s aggression of Ukraine or that the US bears all/most of/primarily the blame for this war?

4) There is little doubt that these peace negotiations failed due to resistance from NATO and in particular from the USA and the UK. — Tzeentch

At this link where they talk about the report you are referring to (https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-funke-harald-kujat-peace-for-ukraine), I see that the first cited sources are essentially Naftali Bennett, Schröder, Turkish Foreign Minister. I limit myself to say that the last two may have their interest in putting the West in a bad light. Concerning Naftali Bennett, his views are significantly more nuanced than it looks by cherry-peaking what he said in his interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK9tLDeWBzs): indeed, he goes as far as to say at minute 2:45:41 “this is pre-Bucha, Bucha massacre, once that happened I said it’s over” (it would interesting to see if Bennett has changed his mind about the Bucha massacre after the recent Hamas massacre in Israel), at minute 2:59:34 “in a broad sense, I think there was a legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin” (referring to the more aggressive approach against Putin) or at minute 3:02:09 “there was a good chance to reach a cease fire, but I’m not sure. But I’m not claiming it was the right thing. In real time I thought the right thing was a ceasefire, now I can’t say. Maybe it would have conveyed the wrong message to other countries”.

Concerning the Istanbul Communiqué, two points remain predictably uneasy to settle: the territorial claims over Donbas and Crimea, the security guarantees. Concerning the security guarantees, either they exclude Russia so they become a version of NATO which Russia couldn’t possibly like if that’s Putin’s issue, or they include Russia (the aggressor) which can at the very least sabotage any effort of Ukrainian Westernisation (as much as it happens with resolutions that go against Russian interest in the UN) while being spared economic and diplomatic sanctions.

If these are the deal-breaker conditions for a peace negotiation, is it completely irrational for Ukraine and its Western allies (like the United States) to resist peace talks, even assuming a COMPETENT and HARD TO BEAT Russia? Teach me your theory of rationality, I'm eager to learn from you. — neomac


No problem, I am happy to teach you. — boethius

BTW how many rubles do I owe you, prof?

First as I've already explained, it's completely irrational to refuse negotiating as the weaker party to a conflict. Not only are Russia's demands maybe their starting position and through negotiation you "talk them down" but Ukraine was also in a position to get concessions also from both Europe and the United States.

So if you don't negotiate you can't know what exactly is on offer. Perhaps Russia is offering some compensation for Crimea that makes a peace more palpable and so forth. Perhaps other European states that do not want a protracted war with Russia would also offer compensation that would make life better in Ukraine — boethius

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Your reasoning looks rather out of historical circumstances.
First, Ukrainians didn’t refuse negotiation BY DEFAULT. There have been several attempts for negotiations for a ceasefire, all of them ultimately failed. Add to that a long history of failed agreements and reviving historical tensions between Ukraine and Russia. So the refusal of negotiation can very likely be a consequence of past failed negotiation attempts and failed agreements.
Second, hand-weaving at hypothetical compensations for the Ukrainian territorial, economic, security losses while abstracting from relevant historical and geopolitical circumstances is a rather weak argument. Indeed, the idea that the US and European allies would compensate for the Ukrainian territorial, economic, security losses is geopolitically questionable if that implies burdening the US as the hegemon (which has been explicitly and repeatedly antagonised by Russia) and its allies (which can’t easily make concessions to Russia without irritating the hegemon) for the Ukrainian losses (which, notice, would be also Western losses if Ukraine was meant to be more integrated into the Western sphere of influence!), the costs of compensating such losses, and the additional strategic risks (by emboldening Russia, China and Iran witnessing Western weakness) while, at the same time, condoning everything to an anti-Western Russia. And historically questionable: appeasing Hitler just emboldened his hegemonic ambitions (and also encouraged a nasty alliance with the Soviet Union before their great patriotic war, right prof?).
Third, whatever the Russian initial demands were circumstances for peace negotiation worsened within a month: the failure of the Russian special operation in Kiev (if the objective was Ukrainian capitulation) and the genocidal massacres (like in Bucha) became public (as much Russian state media support of Russian genocidal intents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Russia_Should_Do_with_Ukraine). Later, the deal-breaker demands included also the new annexed oblasts. So I’m not surprised that Ukrainians would be compelled to refuse negotiation. Another strong reason is that Ukrainians would like to keep the Western alliance and they could likely count on the decades-long support of the US: Ukraine is on the border of Europe, the historical core of the US’s sphere of influence. While Russia explicitly antagonizes the US hegemony and solicits anti-Western regimes to join Russia in this effort, so both the US and its enemies are compelled to see the war in Ukraine as a critical step to establish a new World Order at the expense of the US. So it is reasonable to expect this be of particular concern for the US.

As for your point about deal breakers, if you mean giving up claim to Crimea or declaring neutrality are deal breakers, those are irrational deal breakers. If Ukraine has not military option to retake Crimea then maintaining that as a deal breaker is simply irrational, it is much more rational to seek to get as much compensation for recognizing reality that you have no hope of changing through military intervention. Likewise, if Ukraine has no hope of joining NATO anyways and no hope of defeating Russia in military terms, then the rational course of action is to seek as much compensation as possible for accepting neutrality.

The justification for Ukraine's refusal to negotiate and declaring delusional objectives and ultimatums, such as only being willing to negotiate once Russia leaves all of Ukraine, was the theory of victory that Russia would fall apart under the pressure of the war, Western sanctions and domestic opposition to the war. — boethius

I was talking about RUSSIAN official deal-breaker demands (given the quotations I made) not Ukrainian deal-breaker demands. Indeed, Ukrainians were opened to make concessions. But they either didn’t satisfy Russia or didn’t satisfy the Western allies (not surprisingly so if they have to play the role of security guarantors).

None of that I would argue was rational for Ukraine to believe, but the US made quite clear that their theory was a protracted war with Ukraine, sanctions, blowing the up the pipelines, would weaken Russia long term. This is made quite clear by

“I like the structural path we’re on here,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham declared in July 2022. “As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person.” — Aaron Mate


Which makes clear the US does not view Ukraine's choice as a rational one, but a good path for the US (what "we" refers to in this context).

And this is nothing new, using fanatical fighters as a proxy force to weaken a rival is post-WWII great-power conflict 101. — boethius

If you are right about your manipulative interpretation of what Sen. Lindsey Graham said, that proves at best he shares your views of what is rational. But I find questionable your concept of “rationality” roughly for the same reason I find questionable your interpretation of what Sen. Lindsey Graham said. Indeed, if the US was in the same shoes of Ukraine, namely invaded by a foreign great power historically bent to destroy, dispossess and oppress the US, would it be irrational for Americans to hyperbolically “fight to the last person” as long as powerful foreign allies helped with the weapons the US needed and the economic support? I would expect the answer would be “absolutely-fucking-lutely!” from a real American and Republican patriot like Sen. Lindsey Graham, right prof? Especially if Sen. Linsey Graham considers Russia a state sponsoring terrorism (https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1554486803431886848), right prof?
Besides, claims of “using fanatical fighters” are not particularly compelling: Russia uses “fanatical fighters” in Donbas against the Ukrainian regime AS MUCH AS “non-fanatical fighters” to spread pro-Russian propaganda with the same arguments you yourself and your sidekicks are pushing here (even with greater zealousness than pro-war Russians themselves!). And this too is a “post-WWII great-power conflict 101”.
As far as I’m concerned, between the US and Ukraine there is a convergence of interests. Until the US wants to play the hegemon and Ukraine needs the US to escape from Russian sphere of influence, there is a convergence of interests. This is the relevant point I’d make.

For Ukraine, the point of maximum leverage was in the initial phase of the war (or even before the war) and the rational thing to do is negotiate when you are strongest.

The myth building undertaken by the United States that the time to negotiate is not at the start of the war but Russia is incompetent and weak and can be pushed back, was to encourage Zelensky to reject peace as well as reassure European allies that supporting Ukraine militarily is a worthwhile endeavor (rather than forcing Ukraine to accept a peace deal, which the Europeans could have done even without the United States). Some parties in Europe were of course as enthusiastic for Ukraine to fight the Russians as you could possibly be, but many people in Europe were skeptical. — boethius

I have no reason to specifically assume that Zelensky or Western leaders are as gullible as you wish to depict them. What I have reason to generally assume is that politicians (which are always assisted by appointed military, intelligence, economic, political and communication advisors) are not expected to easily fall for propaganda as you seem to assume. Besides it’s most certainly unreasonable to expect that political leaders’ conscious decision process would be infallible and fully transparent to the general public while history is still in the making. As far as I’m concerned, Zelensky and Western political leaders may have had no need for the sort of encouragement you are suggesting, which would be best suited more for the general Western audience. On the other side, it may be in Zelensky’s interest to press partners to keep their words in terms of commitment and remind them of related reputational costs.
Concerning the Europeans, it’s up to them to decide to what extent it’s in their best interest to remain within the American sphere of influence and play along. At this point in history, the risk they may overlook to me is that the weaker, more isolationist or more distracted the US is, the greater is the risk the hegemonic game among the US, Russia, China and Islamist regimes will move more aggressively inside an unprepared Europe. So better for the European leaders to take the time the Ukrainians bought them to prepare for the worst.

Now, certainly your reply is that Ukraine really wants Crimea back and really wants to be in NATO, perhaps agreeing already with:

It's beyond me how anyone can take this seriously.

Not only was there no way for Ukraine to join NATO with the Donbas conflict unresolved.

Launching a demonstrative attack on your neighbours capital to get them to not join a defensive alliance with your enemies must be the dumbest plan I've ever heard. "Hey look how easily we can threaten your capital and take your land. Better not get any protection, that'd be bad. Also we're going to retreat after loosing some of our best troops and a bunch of equipment, so you'll know we mean business". — Echarmion


Of which the answer is literally right there in these statements.

Ukraine has no hope of actually joining NATO as Echarmion literally states. Obviously it would have been nice for Ukraine to join NATO anytime before the war or even now and have other countries come and fight your battles.

... However since Ukraine has essentially zero hope of joining NATO, then what is rational is to try to seek compensation for recognizing what you can't have anyway. What is totally irrational is to fight a costly war to defend "the right to join NATO" even if you can't actually join NATO. — boethius

Unless there is essentially zero hope for Ukrainians to obtain the wished compensation as much as there is zero hope for joining NATO.
My expectation still remains the same: to the extent the US and its European allies strategically aim at preserving the Western world order against anti-Western authoritarian regimes’ challenges, they can’t possibly dismiss Ukraine ’s security concerns and simply reconcile with Russia after what Russia has done. Russia’s imperialist ambitions need to be frustrated as much as possible, and its military/economic projection capacity and prospects of growth should impactfully drop for decades to come wrt the trends set prior to the beginning of the war. However my understanding is also that at this point in history the US has no interest to commit more than it did. Whatever the reasons are, the American hegemony and deterrence power is dangerously eroding, and failing in Ukraine will have major reputational costs for the US leadership.

To answer the question of why Russia invades to try to force Ukraine to give-up it's goal of joining NATO when Ukraine has essentially no hope of joining NATO, again the answer is right there in @Echarmion explanation of the situation.

Ukraine can't join NATO due to the war in the Donbas, but continuing that war indefinitely is not a reasonable solution for Russia. Just like Ukraine is clearly at a massive disadvantage in a war of attrition with Russia, the Donbas separatists were at a massive disadvantage in a war of attrition with the rest of Ukraine. There is clear limitations of sending "volunteers" and other covert actions to help the separatists rather than formal military formations. Eventually Donbas would be attritted away (or just leave or die of old age) and Ukraine would prevail without direct intervention of the Russian army.

Therefore, the plan of keeping the Donbas conflict alive in order to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO essentially necessitates an eventual escalation of direct intervention of Russian forces to prevent the collapse of the separatists.

The conflict in the Donbas and the cutting of fresh water to Crimea were also serious political problems. Ordinary Russians expected the Russian government to "solve" those issues one way or another.

Again, the portrayal of the invasion as some some sort of whimsical irrational act on the part of an obsessed imperialist in the Kremlin was again myth building to portray Ukraine as an innocent victim, rather than creating problems for Russia that would inevitably lead to escalating the de facto war with Russia in the Donbas since 2014. — boethius

Sure, also the US intervened in support of Kiev to prevent the collapse of the Ukrainian regime given the military disadvantage of Ukraine in a war with Russia.
So what? Even if Russia’s invasion is some sort of sensible rational act on the part of a provoked Russia (which COMPLETELY RATIONALLY kills people Putin claims are one people with the Russians and repeatedly threatens to start a nuclear war over it despite nobody has aggressed Russia proper, right prof?) still there are very strong reasons to oppose it: Russia defies the Western world order and violates Ukrainian right to independence and territorial sovereignty AFTER having acknowledged it officially and repeatedly. What's so hard to understand, prof?
In any case, that’s my argument to question your views and it doesn’t rely to what you attribute to pro-Ukrainian Western propaganda to spin your own pro-Russian counter-propaganda . So you are not going to score points with me by deconstructing your own myth of Western propaganda.

The reason so much effort was spent by the Western media to assert there was no "provocation" was that there was obvious provocations that are easy to understand (such as cutting off fresh water supply and killing ethnic Russians, in one case locking them in a building and lighting it on fire, as well as going around with Swastikas and espousing Nazi ideology), and accepting the reality of these provocations significantly reduces a feeling of moral imperative to help a victim that provokes aggression — "boethius

.

Here you are making a big deal of a fallacious equivocation. “Provocations” as Putin and Mearsheimer’s intend it PRESUPPOSE a concept of sphere of influence (as Putin says “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia”) and hegemonic conflict. In this case, such “provocations” and whining over it are part of the business of competing for hegemony (China whines over the American provocations in the Pacific). There are no accepted supreme ruling authorities to appeal to for rights violation, just security dilemmas and ways to deal with them (ALSO offensively or preventively). Which thing makes me question also certain political or moral implications you may wish to draw from it (like putting all/most/primarily the blame on the US for the current war).
Another thing however is to claim that the Russian aggression of Ukraine was “unprovoked” because Ukraine didn’t aggress Russia proper, like Hamas did instead aggress Israel proper very recently. This point is relevant for the Western world order and the interest for the Ukrainians to join the West. Besides even when Ukraine fought ethnic Russians, the latter still were Ukrainian citizens in Ukrainian territory, some of which turned into anti-Ukrainian “fanatical fighters“ through the interference of a foreign imperialist power, namely Russia. Indeed, “fanatical fighters as a proxy force to weaken a rival is post-WWII great-power conflict 101”, right prof? And Ukraine had sovereign power to fight them back as much as Russia had sovereign power to fight back the Chechens independence movement, right prof? On the other side, if Russia had hard power ways to end Ukrainian abuses toward ethnic Russian minorities, the West had soft power ways to obtain the same results through Westernisation (e.g. EU and NATO membership). This, again, is a rather important point if you want to talk Western world order and the interest for the Ukrainians to join the West.
BTW if Ukrainians are also “one people” with the Russians as Putin would claim , the killing ethnic Russian argument sounds rather pointless. Unless Putin explains how Ukrainians can be at the same time “one people” with the Russians but two distinct ethnic groups, to me Putin’s killing Ukrainians (including innocent civilians) amounts to killing ethnic Russians according to HIS OWN ASSUMPTIONS, right prof?
Besides Russia could have simply solicited the ethnic Russians that felt horribly “persecuted” by the Nazi Ukrainian regime to flee in Russia, like Jews did flee in Israel and the US. Russia has a big land you know and since it didn’t have problem to even forcefully and massively deport people in other parts of its own vast territory (as it did with the Ukrainians during this war and the Crimean Tatars in the past), why should it have problems to help relocate all ethnic Russians that feel persecuted by the Ukrainian regime into the motherland? Donbas’ “fanatic fighters” can’t possibly be more safe from genocidal Nazi-Vampire-Cannibal Zelensky, with all his Swastikas tattoos, worshipping Hitler and extermination of all Russians on earth in concentration camps, in some part of Siberia than in Donbas, right prof? Also because in Russia there are more nazis which will protect them than exterminating them, right prof?

If you recognize the obvious reasons for Russia seeking a military solution to obvious problems, then corollary is that Russia is a rational actor with reasonable concerns and perhaps a peace can be negotiated that is better for everyone, and likewise greatly diminishes a feeling of obligation to send free money and arms to Ukraine.

The myths required are founded on mostly just ignoring obvious facts but also just Western ignorance. Since the Western media mostly ignored the conflict in the Donbas and ordinary Westerners mostly ignore the Western media anyways, the Russian invasion came as a surprise (to them) so it is easy to build on that and portray the invasion as irrational and unprovoked, just sort of out of the blue.

You can of course argue Lindsey Graham's point that it was good for the US to create the myths required to encourage Ukraine to give up their leverage through fanatical fighting as that will "damage" Russia, but it's difficult to argue that it was rational for Ukraine to do so.

Once it started to become clear that Russia was not weak and would not be easily beaten, the new justification was that the war was existential for Ukraine, again based on the myth that Russia wants to conquer all of Ukraine: therefore it is reasonable to fight even "to the last Ukrainian" because the battle is existential. However, that argument is not only simply wrong (Russia doesn't have the force necessary to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine and there's no gain in doing so) it is also a fallacy anyways confusing what is existential for a state and what is existential for a people. — "boethius

Again, I don’t give half a kopeck about your myth of Western propaganda. I would still find arguably rational for the US and Ukraine to oppose Russia EVEN IF Russia is rational (wrt its strategic goals), provoked (in Putin’s or Mearsheimer’s sense), competent and not easy to beat. I don’t need AT ALL to deny such assumptions to make my point which you are more than welcome to criticise, prof.
Criticising pro-West propaganda can be as easy as criticising pro-Russian propaganda. But it may not be as fruitful as you wish. Indeed, the risk of spinning your counter-propaganda at large is simply to increase political polarisation that hostile powers can/will exploit, which in turn will push more authoritarian/extremist political trends in the West.
Besides, you and your sidekick and likeminded people won’t stop to promote anti-Western and anti-US propaganda EVEN IF the US/West/NATO did what you suggest for a cease-fire in Ukraine, because their historical faults for this war and beyond are endless, right prof?
Don’t ever waste your time to talk about Western propaganda with me, if you want to score points with me. Ever.

The only time it is reasonable to fight to death against impossible odds is if the aggressor anyways plans to murder you if you surrender.

If I am attacked by a larger and more skilled opponent that I am convinced is trying to murder me (not coerce me into giving him my watch) then it's reasonable to fight back even if I am fairly certain I will lose, as there is always some chance, no matter how small, of prevailing due to luck in fighting or then the lucky intervention of external forces. — "boethius

Your notion of “rationality” is grounded on your own sense of the value of life, and a convenient example were the odds are taken to be clear by default and in abstraction from the historical and geopolitical context.
Once again, yours are non-shared assumptions. As far as I’m concerned, anybody can put value to their own or other people’s life the way they feel, then one can more or less share/sympathise with. So people can value their independence and social identity, more than their own lives and more than other people can share. Indeed, your reasoning is biased by the value you attribute to life, which is typically Western. Morale at war implies readiness to sacrifice ones’ life, and for military leaders to sacrifice soldiers and civilians, also at the risk of doing it disproportionately, and even against more capable adversaries. Palestinians, Afghans, Kurds fight for their independence and national identity, for generations, no matter if they are the weaker party to a conflict, no matter if they are instrumental to geopolitical moves of other bigger players. BTW how many Russians, soldiers and civilians, were killed during the great patriotic war, prof?
I find COMPLETELY IRRATIONAL to assess human behaviour based on social standards not grounded on realistic assumptions about human behaviour. Humans value social identity and freedom to the point of fighting for them to death, take revenge for it, mistrust enemies for it, and sacrifice their own individual and collective well-being/safety for it, over decades, over generations. Afghans, Kurds, Palestinians, Israeli, Ukrainians, and Russians keep reminding us that however tragic in itself and disturbing to armchair self-entitled nobodies on the internet, this is a very common hardcore driving factor of human behaviour. To what extent that holds for Ukrainians is up to the Ukrainians to tell.
My understanding is that all countries pursuing national interest are rationally compelled to assess proximity in values, capabilities, history, ambitions and margins for cooperation wrt other countries. Ukraine is more open to join the West while Russia wants to antagonise the West. Besides, in geopolitics, as much as in the Ukrainian war, the odds especially in the long term remain uncertain. The best countries can do, is to try to gain as much relative advantage as possible over competitors, and the historical and geopolitical context offer relevant guidance in understanding the stakes of the ongoing competition.

However, not only is there zero evidence Russia plans to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, there is even less evidence Russia wishes to do so in order to murder every Ukrainian.

The war maybe existential for Zelesnky, but it is not existential for the average Ukrainian and there is no rational basis to fight a losing war.

If you are losing a war then your leverage decreases over time and does not increase. The closer the war comes to a military termination (where you lose) the less reason the opposing side has to offer any concessions and of course the more people and infrastructure you lose due to continuing to fight; and to make matters even worse, the more you lose a war the faster you lose the war in the future as the destruction of your fighting capacity means further disadvantage and asymmetry of losses. — boethius

Since the very beginning, the idea was basically that Russia will continue its war against Ukraine until it gets its demands satisfied. And such demands do not require Russia to occupy all Ukraine or murder every Ukrainian. So military loss and victory for Russia must be assessed wrt Russian demands and declared goals, as well as their evolution. And even if Zelensky’s idea of winning back all occupied territories is currently unattainable, that doesn’t imply that Ukraine is willing to surrender to all Russian demands. Indeed, until the West is backing and intends to back the Ukrainians because strategically convenient, the Ukrainians do not need to surrender to all Russian demands, even more so if they have personal reasons not to do so.

It's a foolish mythology that was required to justify refusing peace talks altogether which was completely irrational without the belief that Russia was somehow incompetent and easy to beat. — boethius

Dude, read here:
Russia's demands in the early phases of the invasion included legal recognition for Russia's annexation of Crimea, independence of Luhansk and Donetsk, as well as demilitarization and "de-Nazification" of Ukraine

After Russia declared unilateral annexation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that recognition of these additional claims were necessary conditions for any peace plan.

In April 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that he wanted any peace negotiations to focus on creating a "new world order" to counter global hegemony of the United States.

Russia's demands were Ukraine's recognition of Russian-occupied Crimea, independence for separatist-controlled Luhansk and Donetsk, and "de-militarisation" and "de-Nazification". Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that while his country was ready for talks to resume, Russia's demands had not changed.

Dmitry Peskov restated Moscow's demands, that Ukraine should agree to change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, accept that the Crimea was Russian territory, and recognize Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

If these are the deal-breaker conditions for a peace negotiation, is it completely irrational for Ukraine and its Western allies (like the United States) to resist peace talks, even assuming a COMPETENT and HARD TO BEAT Russia? Teach me your theory of rationality, I'm eager to learn from you.

is it better for the US to give up on Israel and invest on Saudi Arabia/Egypt instead? — neomac

Why not have them all as allies? No? — ssu

Sure, it is what the US is doing (I stated the same in some previous post “It’s not an aut-aut choice. The more the better.”). However you seemed to question the US support for Israel with a series of objections like:

“Both Egypt and Saudi-Arabia are allies of the US. If there would be logic here, that the issue is to prevent emergence of Iran becoming a regional power, wouldn't it then to be more logical to support the Sunni Arab states? The US has already forces in Iraq.”

“Umm... isn't the US and Egypt in good terms too? Wouldn't geopolitically the stability of Egypt be here more important? The Suez canal is in Egypt. Btw, those gas fields that Israel has aren't so important. And as Israeli is a very wealthy country, I guess it does have a lot of internet cables”

“But why not then do this with the allies that actually come to help the US in it's wars? Why not for example the UK? Give them the aid to make new joint ventures on new weapon systems with the British! They would be very happy if the "special relationship" with the US really would be a special relationship. They have a sound, well function military industrial complex I think better than Israel. Especially after the disaster of Brexit, they need friends. The British have gone with you to into Afghanistan, into Iraq, defended Kuwait alongside the US. Israel has not. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to help and improve the armed forces of your ally that for example can help you all around the World (like with AUKUS), including in the Far East?”

I limited myself to explicit the possible reasons for why the US is so committed to support Israel in the Middle East and those reasons go beyond the idea of the Evangelical support to Zionism or the humanitarian acknowledgment for the Jews' right to self-determination. There is an intelligible and bipartisan strategic interest behind the support of Israel however fallible its pursuit can turn out to be.

NATO alliance requires from the US a financial and military engagement that has become domestically controversial (and which European democratic countries are reluctant to rebalance).Israel has the benefit to not need the same kind of engagement by the US (Israel is a militarised regime) — neomac

This is simply false because of two reasons. Firstly, no NATO member has ever gotten as much aid than Israel. About 30% of all US foreign aid has gone to tiny Israel! The US has rushed it's weapons straight from it's arsenal's to Israel when it has had it's conflicts with it's neighbors. NATO countries haven't gotten such aid, so what you are saying simply is not true.

26641.jpeg

Secondly, Europe was the primary front during the Cold War as Soviet tanks were in Central Europe. To this the Middle East was a sideshow. Now there simply doesn't exist that huge presence that the US had in Europe. And even as much Americans desperately want to "pivot to Asia" to face China, Europe still surprises them again and again with wars like with the Yugoslav Civil War and with the Russo-Ukrainian war. — ssu

Sure, the US provided a lot in military aid to support Israel, because Israel, differently from NATO countries, was under constant imminent threat from Iran and its proxies and because the Middle East has been for a while a hotter arena than Europe until the war in Ukraine. But the American financial and military engagement still remains different, as I said, because the problem is not just how much money the US puts into providing security to NATO countries vs Israel, but how much of this benefits the US interest in return. Over time, after the collapse of Soviet Union (most certainly after the war in Yugoslavia), many NATO countries have been progressively perceived as exploitative consumers of the security provided by the US, investing little in their own security, mostly reluctant to side with the US in the Middle East, getting to close to strategic rivals, like Russia and China, getting overconfident in questioning the American leadership and competing economically against the US (actually the war in Ukraine showed the weakness of the NATO allies in the face of the Russian threat). Israel has been until now in a better spot to the eyes of the US.

NATO is not just about military defense but, ideally, about military defense among countries that support “democratic values”. — neomac


Preferring Saudi Arabia and Egypt over Israel could blow back in terms of soft power, — neomac

REALLY?

Uh, when they (Saudi Arabia and Egypt) are already US allies, what here would be the blow back? That mainly Saudi terrorists made the worst terrorist attack on US and killed far more Americans than Hamas achieved killing Israeli soldiers and civilians? The killing of a Saudi journalist in a Saudi embassy? The Yemen Civil War? Has all of it upset Americans? Not much, and not much as supporting Israel's tactics in the occupied lands.

Even this hilarious photo op with the US president and the leaders of Egypt and Saudi-Arabia didn't cause an outcry, simply laughter:
23orb-superJumbo.jpg

Sorry, but here you can see the how just little the war in Yemen has been in the media than reports of Israel's apartheid system in the lands it has conquered and the fight against Gaza. In one month a lot of children have been killed and 10 000 Gazans in all. Yet in the 9 years that Yemeni Civil war has gone about 150 000 have been killed in the fighting and over 300 000 from disease and malnutrition.

All I'm implying is that if the US would take a stance to Israel as it takes to Canada, UK, Japan, Germany and any other ally, that could start to solve the situation. — ssu

If we are comparing Israel vs Saudi Arabia/Egypt as allies of the US in the Middle East (that’s what I was doing anyways) and accepting the fact that each country can have its own agency and its own agenda conflicting with the American national interest (that’s true also for Europeans), is it better for the US to give up on Israel and invest on Saudi Arabia/Egypt instead? The primary criterium can’t possible be “the unconditional respect for human rights”, since neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia/Egypt nor the US itself would pass the test in the eyes of many (inside the US too). The criterium doesn’t need to be the fitness for a NATO-like alliance which has proven to be twice problematic: there are NATO countries which do not play along with the US interests to various degrees (on the extreme side authoritarian regimes like Hungary and Turkey) and NATO alliance requires from the US a financial and military engagement that has become domestically controversial (and which European democratic countries are reluctant to rebalance). Israel has the benefit to not need the same kind of engagement by the US (Israel is a militarised regime) and at the same time spontaneously play against the emergence of regional powers hostile to the Americans (like the Arab/Islamist world) while having enough common cultural-institutional-economic-technological-security grounds and exchanges with the US to justify the privilege Israel has over Saudi Arabia/Egypt. That’s why I find the American attempt to draw Saudi Arabia and Egypt toward Israel, instead of bypassing Israel, pretty consequential.

Zelensky Rebuke of General Signals Rift in Ukrainian Leadership
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/world/europe/zelensky-rebuke-general-zaluzhny.html

No, it's fine, thanks.

I have also corrected him repeatedly on the actual accounts of negotiations, as reported by an actual participant, — Jabberwock

Would it be possible to link the post where you reported this?

The analogy required to understand how stupid this propaganda is, is to consider the scenario where I put a loaded gun to your head and then tell you I'm not threatening you because I don't intend to pull the trigger. — boethius

The stupidest analogy you could come up with. Military threat needs to be assessed in relative terms:
- Russia is a nuclear power, Ukraine not.
- Russia has a stronger military than Ukraine (it was/is claimed to have "2nd-best military in the world").
- Russia has historically oppressed Ukraine way more than the other way around.
You even keep repeating ad nauseam the first two points to argue that Ukraine has no chance to win Russia, after being aggressed by Russia and being deprived of 20% of its territory!
Do you even read what you write?!

"Drip Feed theory" (DFT) is that what is sent to Ukraine depends on what kind of help will prop up Ukraine in the short term while not being a real threat to Russia nor piss them off "too much".

My premise is that strategic interest of the US in the Middle East is to prevent the emergence of regional powers that challenge the American hegemony. — neomac

Yes, but does being the most staunch ally of Israel help here?

Both Egypt and Saudi-Arabia are allies of the US. If there would be logic here, that the issue is to prevent emergence of Iran becoming a regional power, wouldn't it then to be more logical to support the Sunni Arab states? The US has already forces in Iraq.

Sorry, but what US needs is a hegemony that it has in Western Europe through NATO. Countries that want it to stay in the continent. Not countries that are just waiting for it to go away, but being friendly when Uncle Sam is around. — ssu

NATO is not just about military defense but, ideally, about military defense among countries that support “democratic values”. Preferring Saudi Arabia and Egypt over Israel could blow back in terms of soft power, not only because Saudi Arabia and Egypt are most certainly not democratic countries (notice that NATO has already problems in dealing with Turkey and Hungary), but also because their population leans toward supporting the Islamic jihad ideologically and financially (Saudi Arabia has also been accused of committing a genocide in Yemen and arguably Al-Sisi too against his own people). Besides Egypt and Saudi Arabia political elites can flirt with authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, something Israel can’t easily do precisely because of the Palestinian issue. So, for the US, courting Saudi Arabia and Egypt at the expense of Israel will likely increase their negotiation power not the American negotiation power, while at the same time alienate a precious ally like Israel (less reluctant to engage in a military confrontation against hostile powers than many NATO countries) by increasing its isolation and therefore its threat perception (likely at the expense of the Palestinians). This in turn will inflame the American domestic conflict also over Israel (better would be for the Democrats to exploit the Republican sensitivity over Israel, to get a greater support over Ukraine from them in exchange of more concessions to Israel). Normalizing the relation between Israel and Saudi Arabia/Egypt may help for both containing Iran in the Middle East (likely also Turkey in the Mediterranean Sea which might benefit the Europeans) and softening the Israeli attitude toward the Palestinian issue. This might be a diplomatic success for the US (like the Camp David Accords) considering that China is working in the opposite direction by trying to reconcile Iran with Saudi Arabia.

EU Enlargement: Commission recommends starting accession negotiations with Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and candidate status for Georgia
https://commission.europa.eu/news/enlargement-commission-recommends-starting-accession-negotiations-ukraine-moldova-bosnia-and-2023-11-08_en

If the question is about “ Israel has done ANYTHING to help it's ally US”, I gave you the examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel — neomac

I think I already mentioned that it was the US that deployed it's own forces to protect Israel. Not the other way around. — ssu

So what? My premise is that strategic interest of the US in the Middle East is to prevent the emergence of regional powers that challenge the American hegemony. On that occasion, as explained in the link, Israel despite being attacked by Iraq refrained from retaliating because this better served the American-led Arab coalition to counter Saddam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_in_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War — neomac

HAH HAH!!!
Well, I cannot fathom just what that supposed to be of an example of the "strategic alliance" that Israel had covert arms deals with Iran. For the US similar weapons deliveries was the Iran-Contra scandal, that shook Reagan's administration. So Israel makes shady deals with it's neighbors that vow to destroy it.

And the Osirak strike? Well, again here (just as with similar strike in Libya) Israel had first and foremost it's own agenda in having nuclear dominance in the region. Heaven forbid any kind of parity!!! Again read just how suspicious JFK was about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, but then that was before 1967. — ssu

Again, so what? What happened is still consistent with the logic I stated above. Israel can fit into the American strategic goals in the Middle East, like preventing the emergence of a regional power hostile to the American hegemony. Ideological conflicts can be put aside if there is a more threatening incumbent common enemy: do you remember when Hillary Clinton claimed “we created Al-Qaeda”?
You can be skeptical all you want about the efficacy of such strategies, that doesn’t make them less real.

I would claim instead that the American support for Israel is solid, longstanding and bipartisan so that’s for me enough — neomac

But that's my whole point. This "solid" relationship happened only after 1967 and yes, there's bipartisan support. As I stated, the whole reason is that the US is the staunch ally of Israel is because both parties want to get votes and win elections. That's it. For the US it's a domestic issue. That's the key to this "strategic alliance". And that's why Biden or anybody cannot push Netanyahu around. Heck, he'll just voice his concerns to the both parties and it's hell for the US president. — ssu

Yes you claimed that it is a domestic issue. But what is that supposed to mean? First of all, that doesn’t exclude strategic concerns: indeed, all costly strategic foreign policies can have domestic impact in a democracy. Second, your explanation seemed to rely on the role of the Evangelical Christians supporting Zionism (which is not bipartisan as the support for Israel is). Now if your point is that Biden supports Israel because he will have greater chance to win the elections by pleasing Evangelical Christians, I countered: “Evangelicals support Trump not Biden, even if Biden decides to support Israel. If Biden wanted to compact his democratic front, assuming the anti-Israel front was significantly stronger among democrats, then it would be more convenient for Biden to not support Israel. ” (and BTW Biden is also catholic, not the ideal candidate for Evangelicals).

But you are talking about Netanyahu, I’m talking about Israel. — neomac

Then give the example when Israel has done anything to help it's ally US. As I have stated, this "special relationship" with Israel started only after the six day war. And it's been quite one sided, especially when there's no threat of Soviet Union: no country in the region is armed by China as the Soviet Union did. There are no Chinese instructors in the Middle East. — ssu

If the question is about “ Israel has done ANYTHING to help it's ally US”, I gave you the examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_in_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
The alliance is strategic and it doesn’t need to focus exclusively on current military threats , so it concerns the emergence of anti-Western regional powers (like Iran) and the potential penetration of great power rivals in the Middle-East (like Russia and China), assuming that the US is reasoning as an hegemon.
If you are claiming that Israel is INFLUENCING American foreign policies that are AGAINST the American national interest, I would claim instead that the American support for Israel is solid, longstanding and bipartisan so that’s for me enough to claim that is in the American perceived interested to preserve Israel (or, if you prefer, that the pros to preserve an alliance with Israel are estimated to outweigh the cons) and that makes sense given how resourceful and geographically strategic Israel is in the Middle East.

The geographic position of Israel is relevant for military and intelligence projection, also against/for possible sabotage operations in a region that is dense of major routes critical to the World economy. That’s all I’m saying. — neomac

The US doesn't have any military bases in Israel. The US has military bases in Turkey, in Kuwait, the Gulf States. It has friendly ties to Egypt and Jordan. What is the geographic position so favorable in tiny Israel? And intelligence sharing. Really, all of these billions of dollars — ssu

I think the US-Israel partnership is more solid and resourceful than the partnership with Egypt, Turkey or other Arab countries which can support terrorism, flirt with China and Russia, and lack the democratic flavour Israel has. And even if the US has military bases here and there (I was talking about the military and intelligence projection of Israel, though), the challenges against American hegemony by regional and global powers are growing in intensity and number. So it doesn’t seem to be the best moment for the US to give up on one of its most powerful allies. Concerning the “all of these billions of dollars”, Israel may be as expensive and dubiously beneficial as any policy insurance. Given the stakes and the uncertainties, billions of dollars may never be enough though.

Basically the alliance with Israel serve one purpose: domestic politics in the US. Both political parties uphold the staunch special relationship at any cost to win elections, to woo especially the Evangelists for whom Israel is a biblical entity to be supported. Even the large Jewish population of the US (7,6 million) understands that Israel is a normal country and can be critical of politics in Israel, but not the whacky Evangelists who wait for the rupture and the second coming of the Christ. The Holy Land getting attacked rhymes well with that. After all, to the Evangelicals, the Jewish Israelites are Gods people too. Hence the support of Israel has nothing to do with security policy or global realpolitik. And Netanyahu knows this. — ssu

I think you are overestimating the importance of the Evangelical Zionism which is not only grounded in the American internal polarisation but also in Netanyahu’s attitude toward it (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/evangelical-youth-losing-love-for-israel-by-35-percent-study-shows-671178).
Evangelicals support Trump not Biden, even if Biden decides to support Israel. If Biden wanted to compact his democratic front, assuming the anti-Israel front was significantly stronger among democrats, then it would be more convenient for Biden to not support Israel.

Basically here's the dire extrapolation of the catastrohy of the US foreing policy in the Middle East. It has gone all through the decades worse and worse falling to another lower level.

The 1950's was the height of US influence: The Middle East had a treaty alliance like NATO in the case of CENTO with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey aligned in the organization. Then Iraq had a revolution.

Next phase was worse, but still good: This was the "Twin Pillars" policy were Saudi-Arabia and Imperial Iran were the backbone of the US alliance in the Middle East. And then came the Iranian revolution where the most important, most armed ally in the region suddenly changed to be an enemy, a rogue state from the US.

Perhaps last the swansong of the US happened when the utterly reckless dictator of Iraq attacked it's former war financier Kuwait. The Bush the older could create a truly impressive alliance of not only all of the Western allies of UK, France etc and all of the Gulf States, but Morocco, Pakistan, Egypt even Assad's Syria sending a tank division. With approval from the Soviet Union, this was the pinnacle of US diplomacy and power. Luckily Bush took the advice of the Saudis and didn't invade Iraq. Yet the episode it went into the head of a tiny cabal called the neoconservatives.

Next phase was worse: Now the time of "Dual Containment", containing both Iraq and Iran (both former allies, do take note of that!), might sound as the lowest, but it got worse, far worse. After 9/11 for totally invented reason (a nuclear program that didn't exist anymore) the neocons had their war in Iraq and the US attacked and occupied an Arab country, even if just having attacked and occupied another country (Afghanistan).

Next phase was worse: The US stayed in Iraq with a small force, which now could be attacked by Iran and Iranian proxies and the relationship with the Iraqi government, the one originally installed by the US, is bad. The as Syria fell into civil war, you have US troops there alongside Russian troops, who have their own agenda.

If you simply extrapolate from the above the future is bleak for the US. It will continue standing with it's special-relationship Israel and simply alienate it's former allies. So when will Egypt become a rogue state? Or if the Saudi kingdom falls? In the end likely Israel will be the last place where the US can be.

Then surely Israel will have strategic importance. — ssu

The political elites of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are most certainly not pro-Hamas. The openness of Saudi Arabia to economic partnership with Israel was normalising the relations of Israel and part of the Arab world, EVEN IF the Palestinian cause wasn’t solved yet. Most certainly the Israeli reaction in Gaza raises socio-political concerns in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, because the muslim population is sensitive about the Palestinian issue. But how serious is the risk that Israel’s current retaliation is going to alienate Saudi Arabia and Egypt’ political elites? I think that this may be brought on the political table by the American informal network inside Israel to define a post-Netanyahu strategy (that might include smearing campaign against Netanyahu and prison, investments to reconstruct Gaza, etc.).
Israel will have strategic importance in both cases: if it succeeds in normalising the relation with other Arab countries, it’s a strategic success, if the normalisation fails is a strategic failure, Israel will remain the only ally with strategic importance in the Middle East.

I don't think that the US has to do anything (and will do anything) about the internal Israeli politics. You see, this goes only one way: Israel influences US politics, not the other way around. If you say it does, please give me a concrete example. — ssu

Americans have their material leverages (like the American package of military aid), but I guess their diplomatic network can reach Israeli military-intelligence apparatuses as well as political opposition inside Israel to figure out a post-Netanyahu strategy.
Besides the Israeli lobby can be so powerful over American administrations because of the mostly bipartisan American interest in the region: Israel can still be instrumental to contain the risk of emerging regional powers in the Middle East as previously was to counter Soviet Union influence in the region. Here two examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_in_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

I don't recall Isreal and Bibi helping the US to defeat ISIS. Actually what I do remember is that islamists fighting Assad's forces who were wounded were helped by Israel: the islamists would simply leave the wounded on the Isreali side of the Golan Heights and Israeli soldiers would pick them up and take them to a hospital. Pretty honourable thing to do... but I'm not sure if they would have done the same for Syrian troops. In all, Israel and Bibi are just interested in themselves. — ssu

But you are talking about Netanyahu, I’m talking about Israel. The US is evidently committed to the survival and security of Israel in the region, not to a specific Israeli leadership. And my understanding is that Netanyahu political prospects have become pretty grim. Maybe Netanyahu “getting rid” of Hamas is the way Israel might get rid of Netanyahu as well as neutralise his toxic fanbase.

Umm... isn't the US and Egypt in good terms too? Wouldn't geopolitically the stability of Egypt be here more important? The Suez canal is in Egypt. Btw, those gas fields that Israel has aren't so important. And as Israeli is a very wealthy country, I guess it does have a lot of internet cables. — ssu

It’s not an aut-aut choice. The more the better. But I guess the US-Israel partnership is more solid and resourceful than the partnership with Egypt. The geographic position of Israel is relevant for military and intelligence projection, also against/for possible sabotage operations in a region that is dense of major routes critical to the World economy. That’s all I’m saying.

Reasonable guy that makes good points from someone who was up close with the group. He represents a badly needed moderate position. — schopenhauer1

A moderate position that Hamas is clearly willing to destroy also in Israel. Indeed, Hamas attack was targeting the Israeli population and audience politically opposing Nathanyahu and turn them into supporters of Nathanyahu's hawkish response:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/world/europe/israel-reservists-hamas-war.html

For many Western countries the issue of the current conflict is also linked to the presence of an angry Arab/Muslim community which is much larger than the Jewish community (in many European countries at least, not in the US). — neomac

That would actually be the least of their problems.

The perpetual war in the Middle East simply has had and will have a destabilizing effect and unlike the US, European countries will have to deal with the flow of refugees because the Israel and the Levant is in the Mediterranean and not on the Caribian Sea. What will Bibi afterwards with the 2,2 million Palestinians as Israel likely kill only some tens of thousands of them in this war? Or, Lebanon, which basically is now bankrupt and facing, has already 1,5 million refugees from Syria. Hence if the war escalates into Bibi vowing to destroy Hezbollah, Lebanon turning into a battlefield can cause huge amounts of refugee flight again.

Then the war can destabilize countries like Egypt and not Lebanon, that do have a peace agreement with Israel and does have a population that generally despises what Israel is doing. When Egypt had it's brief encounter with democracy, the only organized opposition group won, which wasn't actually so eager anymore to hold on to the peace agreement in all cases. — ssu

Immigration, resident Muslim (or pro-Palestinian) electorate and Islamist terrorism are all potential issues ensuing from the conflict in Israel, sure. So containing the risk of escalation and pursuing a longer term solution for the crisis in the Middle East is desirable. But HOW? By launching an international criminal investigation against Nathnayahu? Impose economic sanctions against Israel? By letting the anti-Western propaganda galvanize the popular outrage in the Middle East and in the West? Hell no. By diplomatically pressuring Israel to stop? How is that supposed to work?
My idea is that when Nathanyahu’s compulsive response will exhaust its impetus, the US will have the best opportunity for diplomatically pressing his ousting as well as a significant change in Israel political strategy toward the Palestinian issue.

France and Germany had and may still have different views from the US on Ukraine, yet this didn’t prevent them from aligning with converging policies and/or narratives when needed. — neomac

Russia has attacked already two countries and wants to annex large parts of Ukraine. Russia is a threat to EU and NATO member states. It's quite different than a terrorist organization. Hence there is no similar unified response from the EU as there was in this case as there was in the case of Ukraine. — ssu

I don’t need an argument for why they are different, but one for why they better be different, since there are non-negligible idealogical and functional links between the two crisis. They are both attacks on a Western-led World Order and they are reciprocally instrumental in dividing the West’s energies, attention and unity.

If we agree that a system of alliance is part of the survival kit of any state in the international arena — neomac

I'm sorry, is Israel an ally of NATO? Has Israel committed ever troops or assistance to help any other country than itself? Is it a member of EU? First and foremost, the US is an ally to Israel that is basically the only advance country which the US funds. — ssu

Right, Israel is a Western ally as much as Japan can be, through the strategic cooperation with the US, the leader of the Western alliance. But the reason why the Western alliance with Israel is not getting any stronger is essentially because of the Palestinian issue. BTW many European states didn’t want to get involved in the Ukrainian war too and the reason why the Western alliance with Ukraine didn’t get any stronger is essentially because of Russia. And yet you seem to be for Western support in the case of Ukraine but not in the case of Israel because of the “humanitarian crisis”, right?
I think that if the West doesn’t support Israel the “humanitarian crisis” could worsen, for example because it would make the escalation in the area more likely.

AND a larger alliance is better than a smaller alliance to the extent economic, political and security policies and capacities can converge to maximise efficacy in reaching desired outcomes, then Israel on its side has lots of economic, technological, military, intelligence, geographic and political assets that it’s definitely worth preserving as an ally. — neomac

As the interview I above posted, yes, lot of that 14 billion weapons aid will go to weapons development.

But why not then do this with the allies that actually come to help the US in it's wars? Why not for example the UK? Give them the aid to make new joint ventures on new weapon systems with the British! They would be very happy if the "special relationship" with the US really would be a special relationship. They have a sound, well function military industrial complex I think better than Israel. Especially after the disaster of Brexit, they need friends. The British have gone with you to into Afghanistan, into Iraq, defended Kuwait alongside the US. Israel has not. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to help and improve the armed forces of your ally that for example can help you all around the World (like with AUKUS), including in the Far East?

Why not the British? They are easier and less problematic than Bibi.
skynews-japan-hiroshima-joe-biden_6160185.jpg

Oh but I forget: Israel's security and objectives are the objectives of the US. In that order. Because... Judeo-Christian heritage, because Israel is a democracy, etc. — ssu

To which I would add: the geographic location of Israel (like the proximity to the Suez Canal and its strategic relevance for the traffic of oil, gas, commerce, the internet cables), the expertise and means that Israel has dealing with Middle Eastern regional conflicts, the Jewish lobby in the US.
While UK was more useful to the US, before the Brexit, when it was inside the EU (because it could better support pro-American policies). But it’s not an out-out issue: both countries are good and effective American allies. Anyways, Israel is the most problematic ally.

Self-hating Westerners vs self-hating Palestinians (especially starting from minute 7):


Who will win the contest of moral outrage? Give me some pop-corn.

My understanding is that it is of vital interest for the West to be committed to a system of alliance between countries that share the same standards and treat each other by the same standards. Israel is a valid ally in that sense. — neomac

I think that Benkei and actually many others, including Western states do have questions if really Israel's standards are the same as ours. — ssu

I use the expression “having the same standards” as a conscious and convenient simplification to deal with a messy reality. After all I didn’t specify which standards I’m referring to, nor conditions for their assessment. So I’m perfectly aware that there is room to broadly question its application to the case of Israel. But that would be true for other Western allies (Turkey), Western countries (Hungary, Poland), and Western leaders (the US). For example if we are focusing on the respect of “human rights” as the core of Western foreign policy, it’s very much questionable that the US was/is respecting this standard in its past wars and supporting Israel now.
As far as I’m concerned, even if we take “humanitarian concerns” as a core Western standard (take also as a test case the illegal immigrants dying in the Mediterranean), I would still understand it in more “realist” terms: “human rights” are what states can more likely commit to enforce AT BEST within the territory they are effectively under their control. Beyond that, in the international arena, and most certainly in the case of contested lands, credibility&accountability of states’ commitments toward “human rights” remain the facto deeply constrained and disputable given the involvement of foreign authorities. A logic of alliance between sovereign powers is what replaces the logic of sovereignty in the international arena, whence the dilemma of the conflict between Israel and Hamas for the West.

Many countries in the West don't see themselves as "allies" of either party. — ssu

France and Germany had and may still have different views from the US on Ukraine, yet this didn’t prevent them from aligning with converging policies and/or narratives when needed.
For many Western countries the issue of the current conflict is also linked to the presence of an angry Arab/Muslim community which is much larger than the Jewish community (in many European countries at least, not in the US). So I’m not surprised to see public gestures meant to contain the risk of a political (given incoming elections) or social backlash. Propaganda serves also that purpose.

I question the "vitality" of being an ally here, just as if Iran would be an "existential" threat to the West either. — ssu

As far as I’m concerned, “existential” or “vital” have to do with the security dilemmas we are having in mind. If we agree that a system of alliance is part of the survival kit of any state in the international arena AND a larger  alliance is better than a smaller alliance to the extent economic, political and security policies and capacities can converge to maximise efficacy in reaching desired outcomes, then Israel on its side has lots of economic, technological, military, intelligence, geographic and political assets that it’s definitely worth preserving as an ally. Most certainly for the US, the leader of the Western alliance.
Besides, let’s not forget the historical role played by European powers in the genesis of Israel. History of the christian anti-Semitism is haunting Zionism as much as the history of Western colonialism is haunting anti-Western countries, and the two tend to overlap in the case of Israel for the Arab world. So even condemning Israel now wouldn’t still condone Western historical responsibilities. Again, it’s on Westerners, to see what tradeoff between division and unity is acceptable in the face of anti-Western challenges.



I’m not blind to the toxic nature of Netanyahu’s government (as many Israeli denounced). I’m not trying to defend the Zionist ideology (with its ethnic-based notion of state) or the abuses of the Israeli colonisation. I doubt that we can still comfortably assess the proportionality of the Israeli response, even if we assume that it is going to be effectively eradicating Hamas inside Gaza (and analysts doubt that too).
I simply find it myopic and easy to exploit to understand the current events exclusively in terms of dead civilians accounting/accountability and demand for peace. In the Israeli crisis as much as in the Ukrainian crisis. The weight of the historical legacy and the geopolitical stakes for sovereign states can not just be trumped by a popular wish for peace or humanitarian concerns.
Another remarkable example to support this, while the Western anti-Americans keep whining over the Vietnam war today, yet Vietnam has now become another precious American military ally in the Pacific.

Over time Israel has become more cooperative on this — neomac

Overtime? Well, here will be the really huge problems, which will be quite important. After this the open air prison of Gaza cannot be just excluded like before. No outside force will likely come to Gaza. Or perhaps it might be a fig leaf of a UN mission, and when criminal gangs etc. rule the ruins of Gaza, it's going to be an example of how Palestinians cannot take care of themselves (or something like that). The question what happens next should be on the agenda, but it might not be. — ssu

I do not assume there is a solution for all problems, however desirable. My understanding is that it is of vital interest for the West to be committed to a system of alliance between countries that share the same standards and treat each other by the same standards. Israel is a valid ally in that sense. Hamas not and countries which support Hamas neither.
Besides Israel has shown a cooperative approach in conflict and toward the Palestinian claims of nationality and land on many occasions. And given the history of the jews in the christian and in the muslim world, I find psychologically obtuse to demand more.
I think the international environment around Israel, especially in the middle east should significantly change, to make more easy for Israel to soften its positions. The Abraham Accords were an opportunity in this direction. An initiative coming from the West. What was the response from the anti-Western Rest?

More to the point, how would Hamas or Putin reason according to you if they were to choose? — neomac

Hamas and Putin choose not to be Western, especially with all of it's decadent attention to human rights and democracy and the rights of peoples and minorities etc. Yet Israel isn't Hamas or Russia, but of course if they wish, they can go in that direction. Yet all the Israelis I've met are quite Western people and think of themselves as being West. They don't have the fear of their state as Russians do.

Hence that's not the issue. The issue is how a Western country handles this situation. Does it try to solve something or is it just more about revenge. Or is it just about "mowing the lawn" until the next Palestinian uprising happens. There are many choices. — ssu

As far as I’m concerned, that is very much the issue, because Russia, China and Iran have found ways to exploit Western vulnerabilities (like freedom of speech, concern for human rights/life, a population of exploitable “useful idiots”) which they do not have and this gives them a very dangerous advantage over the West. Talking about revenge is underestimating a greater threat coming from an alliance of anti-Western and anti-Israel aggressive authoritarian regimes. That’s why the conflict has geopolitical significance.
Concerning the logic of feud and revenge (which the West managed to get rid of within the territories UNDER their control and over several generations) can lead to an eternal conflict as much as to a genocide. Or to a nuclear bomb. But for sure putting the moral burden of a peaceful resolution and all the moral costs in case of failure on one side, especially if previous attempts failed, may alienate instead of persuading reluctant allies. And mine is also a moral point.

To me it doesn’t make much sense to apply one standard when your enemies don’t play by the same standard. — neomac

Well, then I hope you are never put to be an officer position in war, or basically given a rifle and fight in a war. Because it does make sense for me to treat a the enemy as I have been taught in the army: you shoot to kill an armed enemy (before he shoots you) and you don't shoot one that has surrendered or civilians. Your enemy doing that doesn't change what my country ask of me. It all starts from as obvious things like if you have to kill something, then kill it and don't torture it.

Now I don't know what you really meant, but if you have an objection to the application of laws of war because of the actions of the enemy, that we have now, you are the problem if you will go to level as the enemy. So why on Earth didn't the Allies start exterminating all German men, women and children afterwards? Why not sent then the Germans to Auschwitz, since they had already built the infrastructure for industrialized genocide. Why apply them some other standard then and make them feel how untermenschen were treated, neomac? And afterwards, do you think Germany now (assuming you'd leave some spear) was as today? — ssu

Dude, emotional or personal appeals do not work on me. You better put your effort in showing the flaws of my reasoning in its logic or its assumptions.
Notice that you wrote “it does make sense for me to treat a the enemy as I have been taught in the army”, so it depends on how you are taught after all? Those who are taught otherwise, are free to do so? Or do you still want to effectively prevent them from doing so?
The objective in a war is not to respect the law of war or to win a moral argument in a philosophy forum but to win over the enemy. And things can get as ugly and brutal as one can imagine and historically happened.
So one needs a compelling argument for a more proportional military response if this compromises military efficacy: like waste of resources or more propitious opportunities, it doesn’t really grant military victory, it doesn’t politically benefit the winner in the longer run, it weakens the enemies’ support for protracted war, love of humanity. None of these arguments are a magic wand to fix the world, nor to trigger a consistent enough emotional response over time, nor spare us from abuses and exploitative intentions, nor unburden us from the weight of history and the constraints of current power balance.
As far as I’m concerned, laws of war (which are man-made and revisable) exist because all potential belligerents can see a significant benefit in respecting them if they fight among them and/or they can suppress and/or contain the threat coming from those who didn’t commit to such laws when it becomes imminent. Laws of war would be irrelevant if it would be mostly violated or not enforceable. Especially if trumping them makes victory over an enemy more likely.
The West is currently dealing with powerful regimes and ideologies which do not place the value in human life and law of war as Western countries keep doing. And if this gives them a significant strategic advantage in the conflict with the West this is a big trouble for the West.
Instead of your counterfactual, think of actually history: the US nuclear bombed Japan, was this proportionate? how is Japan today? Was the Allied bombing of Germany 1942-1945 proportionate? How is Germany today?
In any case, I don’t think that Israel doesn’t try to abide by the law of war in the current conflict, I’m also far from idealising Israel as if they couldn’t commit abuses. I simply think that the purpose of Hamas which doesn’t abide by the law of war is to make more difficult for Israel to accomplish the task of “minimizing” the civilian casualties in the same way it is possible in more conventional wars where all belligerents care for laws of war, and if the concern for reducing to the minimum civilian casualties would prevent Israel from effectively defeating Hamas on the ground, this approach would in the long run be self-defeating. BTW no other state in he West is living under the same imminent/potential conventional/asymmetric threats Israel is living in middle-east and this may bias our understanding of their situation.

To me it doesn’t make much sense to apply one standard when your enemies don’t play by the same standard. It’s like boxing with a tied hand with somebody who can fight with both hands. — neomac

And that's simply just Hollywood nonsense. Throwing to hell the laws of war doesn't help you, it helps your enemy and undermines your cause and justification. — ssu

First, keeping laws of war may help somebody’s cause only to the extent states and people care about laws of war. Indeed not respecting laws of war didn’t undermine Hamas’ cause and justification. Their historical grievances against the West and their islamist ideology trump laws of war.
Second, I’m not advocating for throwing laws of war. I’m pointing out a problem of their relevance and application wrt the historical circumstances and power balance: if powerful enemies threat the survival of one of our allies, do not abide by laws of war, and can therefore manipulate the war conditions to spin a discrediting narrative against our ally with the precise intent of isolating our ally from our support, that doesn’t help our cause because we would alienate an ally and benefit powerful enemies’s cause, which use our standards, to divide us. And if their strategy succeeds replicate it against us.
Third, in terms of justification the West, there is a load of historical grievances and anti-western narratives so popular even within the West that the West reputation may be unrecoverably compromised. With or without laws of war (see as it is perceived the legitimacy of the war in Iraq no matter how proportional the battle in Felluja was). We can’t hope to win on the ground of justification for the simple reason that demographic trends, extremist ideologies, and state indoctrination in the Rest of the world do not play in our favour. So, my understanding is that the psychological warfare here is not much about how the West can do things better based on their standards, at this point, but about unity in the West against common foes and retort the anti-Western logic against those who promote it, as much as they try to retort our standards against us.

To take the laws of war seriously is important, because it's just an ignorant fallacy that they really would "tie you hands in boxing". You can kill and destroy the enemy quite well. And if you think the laws of war are a hindrance, well, then when having the boxing match just come there with shotgun and shoot your opponent full of lead until the bloody corpse doesn't move. He was such a loser in the first place just waiting for you with those boxing gloves on and thinking you would just try to hit him. As if there would be rules... sucker! — ssu

No idea what point you are trying to make here.

Proportionality as a principle is a manifestation of the law of war’s delicate balance between the military imperative of defeating the enemy as quickly as possible and the humanitarian imperative of mitigating suffering during war as much as possible. Parties to a conflict must not only refrain from attacking civilians and civilian objects deliberately, but they must also make extensive efforts to minimize the incidental harm from their attacks on lawful military targets.

The point was that proportionality is not matter of minimising civilian casualties, but a ratio between maximising military achievements and minimising civilian casualties (nuclear bombing Japan was proportional in WW2?). And that minimising civilian casualties has to do with efforts like early warnings and precision weapons, but the situation is particularly challenging in Gaza, due to the density of the population, the hiding of Hamas combatants among civilians and, to a non-negligible degree, the complicity of the Palestinians themselves with Hamas.
There is an inherent risk in letting Hamas (which doesn’t care about civilians, Israeli or Palestinians) emotionally blackmail us, into isolating Israel. And again, the West is showing its weakness toward the Rest of the World at large. As far as I am concerned, humanitarian institutions are welcome if they manage to make their guidance widely shared, from the West to the Rest, or denounce Western abuses when the West is not significantly challenged by the Rest, not to harass the West which actually gives a shit about humanitarian concerns while the Rest which doesn't give a shit about humanitarian concerns is getting more and more confrontational by exploiting our (not their) sensitivity about human life.

not giving minimal humanitarian aid to over two million people is one troubling issue. — ssu

Over time Isreal has become more cooperative on this
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-says-33-aid-trucks-with-water-food-medical-supplies-entered-gaza-sunday/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-says-will-allow-significantly-more-humanitarian-aid-to-enter-gaza-from-egypt/

Then comes the question what to do to the southern part. How Israel will conduct the war when it comes to the southern part of the Gaza strip is the real breaker here. Civilians supposed to have gone there(in 48 hours), yet it has also has been bombed. — ssu

Why? If you are a Hamas terrorist, knowing that IDF will catch you in the North, you would flee in the South. Again if the logic here is that Hamas hides behind potentially complicit civilians [1] (apparently no pro-Palestinian here seems interested in promoting the narrative that Palestinians are hostage of Hamas, which betrays their pro-Hamas bias), there is no easy way to isolate Hamas combatants.
If that is the strategy, what’s the military way to get rid of Hamas’ current combatants and capabilities? More to the point, how would Hamas or Putin reason according to you if they were to choose? To me it doesn’t make much sense to apply one standard when your enemies don’t play by the same standard. It’s like boxing with a tied hand with somebody who can fight with both hands. You can do it if you are so strong that you have a good chance to win with just one hand. If not, then your approach is self-defeating.

[1]

↪neomac
So it seems. Yet I think the question is how Israel defends itself. Is there a legitimate question about using excessive force? I think there is. Is it when 10 000 Palestinian civilians killed? Or 50 000? Or 100 000 out of 2,2 million? Would over 100 000 dead be excessive? Already Israel has made more strikes than the US did in one year in the war in Afghanistan. — ssu

Excessive wrt what? Excessiveness in the law of war is not assessed wrt the number of casualties but wrt militarly efficacy. IDF has targeted, and killed, Hamas commanders and gunmen, as well as destroyed weapons warehouses, command and control centers, tunnels and numerous other assets that enable the terror organization to function. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/08/06/laurie-blank-follow-up-on-gaza-proportionality-and-the-law-of-war/

The same ones that keep whining about Russia being provoked (while being not aggressed by anybody) and Russian "legitimate" security concerns which led Putin to wage war against Ukraine (so a huge discount on his moral responsibility for his actions), annex Ukrainian territories, and deny the Ukraine's right to exist as independent state after formally acknowledgining its independence, are now whining over Israel defending itself after being provoked through an actual terrorist aggression on Israeli territory from the political faction that is governing Gaza with the support of the local people and without ever being acknowledged as a legitimate state by Israel. And then they accuse others of double standads and hypocrisy.

↪neomac
No. I don't need to repeat the attack by Hamas was unjustified ad nauseum for every internet rando that decides to jump in on the conversation midway. It's tedious. — Benkei

Sure, but I'm less interested in the claim itself, and more in your arguing over "just reasons". So why do you think Hamas was unjustified? Do you think Hamas or Palestinians think that the massacre was not grounded on "just reasons"? Or didn't find it acceptable and yet they executed the massacre anyways? On the other side they were rebelling against the Israeli oppressor. And in war there are civilians as collateral casualties. Besides the ratio of civilian casualties between Israel and Palestine seems heavily unbalanced in favor of Palestine. Right?

people find things acceptable when they are done for just reasons. — Benkei

So you think people don't find doing things for unjust reasons acceptable but do find doing things for just reasons always acceptable? I don't find either claims evidently true or mostly true, if you take acceptable as opposed to rejectable via open political resistance (violent or not) or diaspora or auto-auto-marginalisation if not suicide. I think people overall tend to be sensitive more about violation of their own freedoms or perceived rights, or at most the ones' they really care about, than random others’ and their tolerance over oppression and injustice is pretty high, higher in many non-Westerners than in many Westerners though.
Anyway let’s stick to your “really simple concept”. Why do you think the massacres and attacks on civilians by Hamas is justified or grounded on just reasons [1]? Show me the reasoning you do. Step-by-step, can you spell it out?

[1] my impression is that you equate justification with "having just reasons" where "just" refers to moral justice and "having" refers to what you acknowledge to be grounded on "just reason" independently from the actual personal reasons Hamas agents had. Am I right?

You look like someone who wants to referee a street fight according to chess rules.

I think we can agree that at some point violence to gain independence is justified. — Benkei

What role do you think “justification” is supposed to play?
People may feel oppressed and react against oppression, what would be the purpose of talking “justification” in this situation?

History is replete with examples where violence to gain independence was acceptable. — Benkei

It was acceptable by some, unacceptable by others. What does “being acceptable” have to do with “justification”? Do you mean that all that is acceptable is justified and/or that all that is justified is acceptable? What if X find acceptable what Y doesn't find acceptable?

The point being that if the Palestinian cause for independence is justified, every action by Israel against that is already contaminated as something immoral. And if Israel may punish an immoral attack, then it's corollary would hold true in that the Palestinians may punish the perpetrator who caused their oppression and use some (not all!) violence. — Benkei

Why do you assume that Palestinians or Israel are acting based on whatever YOU take as relevant moral reasons? If X kills Y’s child, and Y kills X or X’s child or X and X’s entire family, why do you think Y would reason in moral terms the way you do? What would be your moral reasoning anyways? Can you spell it out?

↪neomac I have no idea what you're trying to say here. — flannel jesus

The Arab world is deeply entrenched in a cultural environment that is alien to the Western culture as Westerners live it. It is instead dominated by tribalism, feud mentality and islam/ist sectarian preaching (which beheading and children indoctrination into jihadism are an expression). They have learnt to just ape Western language about human rights, international law, and the value of life NONE OF WHICH they are committed to, educated to and inspired by when implementing their institutions. But they use it as a rhetorical bludgeon IF AND ONLY IF it plays against the West (people and institutions), especially as a siren call for Western “useful idiots”. Indeed the Arab world does not make much use of these concepts when they have to deal issues at home or among them. Neither Hamas nor Palestinians give a shit about human rights in the middle east, they want their land from Israel and their blood revenge against Isreal. That’s all. Understandably so, but also who-gives-a-shit-ly so. And it should be evident also how Arabs themselves do not give a shit, nor gave a shit, nor will give a shit about zillions of bombed Palestinian kids in the apartheid prison of Gaza, other than from the fact that they are instrumental to push their geopolitical agenda. They also have learnt the “best” anti-Western arguments (like the Marxist criticism of Western capitalism and imperialism and neocolonialism) from the West itself, the Western “useful idiots”, including the Westernized middle-easterners (which are the most dangerous “useful idiots”).
Outside the West, the Palestinians would be treated as Putin treated the Chechens and now the Ukrainians, or the Chinese treat the Uyghurs, the Turks treat the Kurds. Bloody repression, genocide and concentration camps would be perfectly in order. Russians, Chinese, and Turks don’t give a shit about it.
Now they are using the Palestinians to divide the West, since the West is currently particularly rich in “useful idiots”. So I do not give a shit if Nathanyahu made mistakes for which he deserves not only to be deposed, but even to be literally killed, hanged, tortured to death, or decapitated, along with his closest family. But I would find rather weak from the Westerners to not support Israel in front of the Arab and the Rest of the world. Also a lost opportunity to show the Rest of the world how the Western “useful idiots” are indeed just an irrelevant bunch of “useless idiots”.
Only after Nathanyahu has wrecked to dust Gaza with as many Hamas fighters as possible (hopefully, including their closest families because that’s what is required by the feud logic they understand), it would make more sense to me to immediately have Nathanyahu politically removed along with his supporters (or even better, eliminated physically like in a Hamas operation helped by Mossad, or an entirely Mossad operation then blamed on Hamas) and political trends. Then relaunch another fucking round of peace talks. As far as I’ve understood Israel doesn’t need to allow a Palestinian state, nor Palestinian interlocutors, but it could declare its willingness to stop its territorial expansion or even withdraw in exchange for an international (or Arab-led? Indian, Chinese, Russian-led? Tzeench-Benkei-led?) mandate in the now occupied Palestinian regions and finance part of its reconstruction (starting with hospitals and schools) in a transparent and traceable way. Certainly it would make sense for Israel to be sincerely open to recognise the right of Palestinians to have their own state IF AND ONLY IF Russia recognises Chechens their own state, China recognises Uyghurs their own state, and Turkey recognises Kurds their own state.

↪neomac
I think it's very unfortunate that we've come to focus on exactly how they were slaughtered. Beheaded, burned alive, slit throats, stabbed through the heart, shot... It's a complete red herring to focus on this I think.

Did they murder them? Did they torture them? These are the two questions that are relevant. — flannel jesus

I disagree. I find it relevant to mention whatever allows us better assess the extent of the ideological clash between the West and the Rest (especially if that’s part of the implicit message Hamas intends to send to its people, foreign supporters, and perceived enemies) as well as the reactions of the latter. The issue I’m thinking about is not much related to the fact of beheading children, but the social and cultural meaning of “beheading” and “children” in that part of the World.
We shouldn’t simply assume that is like ours. The same goes with the notion of “human rights” or “self-determination”.

Jordan queen skeptical Israeli children were beheaded by Hamas during onslaught
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jordan-queen-skeptical-israeli-children-were-beheaded-by-hamas-during-onslaught/

Dutch politics is pathetic. Ridiculous virtue signaling. — Benkei


Indeed. We're governed by toddlers. — Tzeentch

Easy to say by anonymous nobodies. Why don't you candidate yourselves, since you know better. Let's see if you ADULTS can do better than just whining over the internet like baby girls.

These people are unhinged. The Netanyahu regime has got to go. Can we get regime change in Israel, please? — Tzeentch

So in the end with all your immense knowledge ("Military history and military thinkers, the development of contemporary land, naval and air doctrine, irregular warfare, modern conflicts, etc. I also had the opportunity to follow courses on propaganda (euphemistically called 'information warfare') - very eye-opening.") you are gonna tell me that you can't do more than just whining over a regime change on a forum to random anonymous nobodies?! Your emotional parade is really hilarious. But I'm sure that no Palestinian bombed in Gaza could stand a second hearing you suffer that much! If that might ever comfort you.

It's amazing what Hamas can just say and the whole world will believe. — flannel jesus

Hamas is exploiting the weaknesses of the Western media. As Putin does. The West is much easier to divide. Anyways I wouldn't lose sight of the geopolitical implications of this conflict in Israel wrt the wider/ideological conflict between the West and the Rest.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2394966/middle-east
Al Arabiya questioning Hamas leaders. Echoes of the same anti-Western propaganda one can read also in this thread.

I've read from a blog following OSINT sources, that it is also possible the missile from Gaza (e.g. r160 or ayyash250) was intercepted by Israel, so what happened to the hospital the parking lot of the hospital was the result of residues of the collision and burst from fuel. Number of victims seems exaggerated (how many people could really cram into that parking lot?) and it may have been inflated on purpose (do we have evidence of the number victims? pictures?).

Gaza hospital: What video, pictures and other evidence tell us about Al-Ahli hospital blast
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061

BTW I love the sarcasm of this Egyptian comedian:

Yes neomac, that is exactly what I said. Impeccable reading skills. — Manuel

You've learnt well, habibi. Throw the stone and hide the hand, may Allah bless you.

If it's something that never happened before I would agree. But the extensive documentation provided by human rights agencies in the 2012, 2014, and other Gaza massacres have shown that this is not abnormal behavior for Israel at all. See for instance the Goldstone report. — Manuel

In other words, since it's likely, then it's certain. Impeccable logic.