How can governments comply to their commitments?...
In other words, governments to gain moral legitimacy (whatever the ideology and regime are) are also morally compelled to pursue/secure power. — neomac

Why would governments need to use power to comply with their commitments? If government A and government B both have similar commitments it's not morally necessary for either government to have power over that territory in order to bring about it's moral objectives. Clearly either government will do the job. — Isaac

How could a government govern if it does not have the means that allow it to govern?! Governing in compliance with some moral commitment still needs enabling means to govern. That's a rational constraint. Any government A,B,C,…,Z with exactly the same commitments or totally different commitments or half similar and half different needs means to govern people within a territory. The territory delimits the community and the resources within a government’s reach, the perimeter of its sovereignty.

The idea that governments need to secure territory in order to carry out their moral commitments only applies if the alternative government (the one competing for the territory) doesn't share those commitments. If it does (or if it's even better), then it doesn't make any difference, the moral commitments will be met, just by a different government. — Isaac

No, even if different governments share the same commitments they would still need to secure a territory. All Western, Ukrainian, Russian governments of all political regimes needed to secure their territory against invaders and/or separatist forces in their history. The territory is the geographic scope of governments’ governing activities so it's very much factored in the notion of governing activity. Congectures over what government is doing or can do better are still irrelevant at this point of the analysis.

It's as if I make a committent to care for an elderly relative and then set about murdering any rival carers on the grounds that I need to see them off so that I can keep the commitment I made. It's an absurd argument. — Isaac

I’m talking about political governments as we know them from history (city states, national states, empires): governments establish laws, impose taxes, have tribunals, law enforcement bodies, build infrastructures, hold their jurisdiction over a certain territory, etc. and they do it in a self-preserving way. They are political organisations that emerge as historical products from social dynamics within certain geographic coordinates and centralising certain public functions within those geographic coordinates. This is roughly what political governments are, with or without moral commitment. I’m just arguing that they can ALSO gain moral legitimacy wrt the people they rule over to the extent they are committed to support the moral standards of the people they rule over and exercise their governing functions accordingly.
Territorial disputes undermine governments’ resources (so their operative capacity and authority) if not their existence, with or without moral legitimacy. IN ADDITION to that they may threaten their moral legitimacy. For example, Ukrainians do not want to be governed by a pro-Russian regime, nor make territorial concessions. So if the Ukrainian government doesn’t commit itself to do what the Ukrainians want nor act accordingly, the Ukrainian government will lose also moral legitimacy in addition to see its sovereignty severely shrunk.
So the argument you take as a good analogy, not only looks absurd, but it’s very poor analogy. So poor that it’s even hard to improve. But I’ll give it a try anyway, here: X’s only job ever is to take care of client Y, but a rival carer Z wants to replace X in part or completely (so X may lose in part or completely his means of subsistence), and to that end Z is trying to convince Y accept him by forcefully entering in Y’s flat and repeatedly kicking in his stomach as hard as he can just in front of X. If X doesn’t intervene to defend Y, not only X may lose part or all of his revenue (were Z to succeed in his “special persuasive operation”) but X also betrays his deontological commitment as a care giver if there is one.

Russia violated Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty. And the West is helping Ukraine to secure its Western countries’ sovereignty (NOT Ukrainians’ sovereignty, that’s the Ukrainian government’s task!) against Russian strategic threats. — neomac

So? What's any of that got to do with the moral case? Why would anyone else care about Ukrainian sovereignty? — Isaac

I’ve already answered both questions. I argued that “national security” can also be a government's moral imperative (this is true for all types of regime and ideologies). So if Western governments believe (and I would add "reasonably so") to secure their sovereignty against Russian threats by supporting Ukrainian resistance, and act accordingly, they are morally warranted.

You are championing a theory of international relations which is incompatible with the kind of moral imperatives you think States should comply with. — neomac

If you can't understand the difference between how things are and how things ought to be then that explains a lot about your failure to engage with any moral arguments. — Isaac

It isn't made so just by you saying it. If states can’t act or are rationally expected to not act based on moral oughts as the offensive realism theory you champion would claim, your claims about what states morally ought to do are doomed to be frustrated, not occasionally but systematically whenever they clash against state security concerns. So it’s precisely because, according to your own understanding of international relations, oughts can never inform political action in the international arena that your claims about what states morally ought do in the international arena are irrational. It’s like a farmer yelling at a cow: you morally ought to stop to eat grass over there because that’s not our field, and failing to do so it’s immoral! This would be a moral ought claim distinct from a fact, yet an absurd moral claim because addressed to a subject that can’t act or is rationally expected to not act according to moral claims. Now imagine the farmer objecting me like you did: "Dude, you do not understand the difference between facts and moral oughts that's why you can't engage with any moral arguments". Apparently you have a very poor understanding of your own conceptual framework.

Why does a nation gathering more resources become moral when a person doing so would not? — Isaac

Your question is misleading. To understand my point one needs to get one step back. Moral rules like legal rules do not grant compliance by themselves. What’s worse is that differently from any legal system moral rules do not offer a procedure to resolve moral disputes , so a community can rely on central governments that are committed to promote a certain moral code within their sovereign territorial domain. How can governments comply to their commitments ? Through power (coercion, wealth, propaganda, etc.). Securing power within a sovereign territorial domain is how governments can both exist/function and accomplish their moral commitments wrt their people. Notice that these are transversal considerations wrt regime/ideology (communist, fascist, capitalist, theocratic, democratic, authoritarian, etc.).
In other words, governments to gain moral legitimacy (whatever the ideology and regime are) are also morally compelled to pursue/secure power.
And that’s also how the notion of “sovereignty” can ground legal/political relations among states also in moral terms.

the goal is “national security” and not “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can”. — neomac

That's the same thing. 'Security' in this context means nothing more than 'I control it, not someone else'. The fight is over the control of the resource-crucial Donbas region. Russia wants it. The West want it. Ukraine wants it. — Isaac

No it’s not, because there are also non-pragmatic normative constraints (i.e. legal, moral) that one doesn’t need to ignore nor dismiss as Mearsheimer would do, like the ones related to the notion of “sovereignty”. Russia violated Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty. And the West is helping Ukraine to secure its Western countries’ sovereignty (NOT Ukrainians’ sovereignty, that’s the Ukrainian government’s task!) against Russian strategic threats.

if that’s your worry, you must listen to your favourite expert: — neomac

Where in any of that does it even mention morality? — Isaac

Exactly. But that's not a problem for me, I'm not the one championing Mearsheimer's views. You are. You are championing a theory of international relations which is incompatible with the kind of moral imperatives you think States should comply with. That’s why your moral arguments are just wishful thinking by your own standards.

I take national security to be the moral imperative of legitimate governments of sovereign states — neomac

That doesn't seem at all intuitive. Why would you think maintaining control over resources a moral imperative? Is it, for example, a moral imperative for me to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can? — Isaac

Your example is misleading.
First, I’m talking about moral imperatives for governments, not moral imperatives for ordinary citizens. Maintaining control over resources can be a moral imperative as much as a forced collectivisation of means of productions by a communist government to ensure the end of human exploitation on earth (which you likely must sympathise with) can be a moral imperative.
Secondly, the goal is “national security” and not “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can”. And even if maximising national security would somehow equate “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can” under certain circumstances (like the ones prospected by Mearsheimer’s theory of International Relations that you champion [1]) so be it.


[1]
BTW if that’s your worry, you must listen to your favourite expert:

You champion Mearsheimer's theory of International Relations as the best explanation of the events unfolding in Ukraine. You discount previous behavior by Russia as indicative of anything happening in this conflict. — Paine

Yes. What's that got to do with the argument here? — "Isaac

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

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

I think that Western governments would be morally objectionable for not supporting (or not supporting enough?) the Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression, as long as Ukrainians are willing to fight. — neomac


Why? — Isaac

Briefly, I take national security to be the moral imperative of legitimate governments of sovereign states. If the Ukrainian government is legitimate and pursuing national security by resisting Russian aggression, I take it to be morally unobjectionable.
If a Western government is legitimate and pursuing national security in supporting Ukrainian resistance, I take it to be morally unobjectionable. “National security” is a strategic notion and it’s essential about all available assets a community has to pursue its biological and cultural needs considering time span, uncertainty, and competitors. So there are 2 important reasons why we need to take into account what the Ukrainian government wants for a moral assessment: needs and decision making.

it’s not on me nor on Western governments to decide to what extent Ukrainians are willing to fight with whatever military aid they get from the West. — neomac


Obviously not. I don't see what that's got do with the issue. The question is whether we should be providing military aid in the way we are, and/or should be doing anything else. That fact that Ukrainians will decide what Ukrainians will do is (despite the bizarre frequency with which it's raised as if it were some Solomonesque insight) trivially uninteresting. — Isaac

My clarification is related to the comment of mine you misunderstood and objected to:

but it is either the morally acceptable sacrifice to achieve your goals in your framework and "anything goes" or then there must be a line somewhere between tolerable and intolerable losses for these military objectives. — boethius


There must be, that doesn't mean you can determine it beforehand, or that it's on me to determine it. — neomac

Yeah, you can't wash your hands of it so easily. It's your governments making the decisions, it's your job to hold them to account. It's just morally bankrupt to throw up your hands and say "it's not up to me" that's just basically inviting authoritarian rule. — Isaac

Roughly speaking, you think that Western governments are morally objectionable for their support to the Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression.
I think that Western governments would be morally objectionable for not supporting (or not supporting enough?) the Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression, as long as Ukrainians are willing to fight.
In any case it’s not on me nor on Western governments to decide to what extent Ukrainians are willing to fight with whatever military aid they get from the West.

It should the authors of statements like "Russia must be stopped" in various forms or "a Russian victory in Ukraine must be prevented because it would encourage more 'rule breaking' or nuclear proliferation etc." to very precisely define what they mean "stopped" or "victory", otherwise they are of course setting themselves up to just move the goal posts later. — boethius

My point is that, if we talk strategy, nobody can specify a unique and accurate account of "victory" and "loss" during wartime the way you seem to expect (neither in this war nor in any other war). Possible but uncertain outcomes can be more than anybody can count and accurately account for. So any possible outcome (plausibly resulting from certain political choices) leading to significantly increased power asymmetries for one player wrt his opponents, especially if it engenders a relatively stable and beneficial trend over a long period (decades, generations) can count as a strategic victory.

If you're willing to say "if Ukraine has lost 100 000, then that's worth it for the harm to Russia so far, and another 1, 2, 3, hundred thousand dead would be worth it" then say so, rather than complain it's emotional blackmail. You are only considering the harm to Russia and not the harm to Ukraine, for you position to be coherent you must either state unlimited harm to Ukraine is worthwhile to achieve limited harm to Russia or then there must be somewhere you draw the line: 500 000 KIA, a million? — boethius

To my understanding, the West is interested in having Ukraine and living Ukrainians withing Western sphere of influence. And it's also interested to treat Ukraine as a sovereign state and therefore let Ukrainians decide how much they want to fight for their self-determination against Russia with Western. Besides it's Ukraine that is interested to convince Westerners with their fight and self-sacrifice that they should support Ukraine not for the sake of Ukrainians but for the sake of harming an expansionist Russia.

but it is either the morally acceptable sacrifice to achieve your goals in your framework and "anything goes" or then there must be a line somewhere between tolerable and intolerable losses for these military objectives. — boethius

There must be, that doesn't mean you can determine it beforehand, or that it's on me to determine it. I don't think that Ukrainians are suicidal, just capable of greater sacrifice than certain Westerners or Russians could expect.

If Russia ends up in the long run with more territory but does not actually defeat Ukraine then it's up for debate if the price paid for the land was worth it overall, certainly not an outright victory over Ukraine, but of course Ukraine would have paid orders of magnitude, possibly 2 or 3, higher price and didn't win anything. If the "strategic defeat" concept proves true (which now seems extremely unlikely as Russia seems to have transitioned their economy successfully) then perhaps it's a "win" for NATO, loss of some sort for Russia (not great, not terrible), and a clear immense and unmitigated loss for Ukraine — boethius

The US and Russia are reluctant to offer a clear definition of "victory" and "loss". There are plausible military (e.g. keep Russia military engaged on all fronts) and propaganda reasons for that (i.e. offering plausible deniability in case of military defeat). However, as I said elsewhere, propaganda consumed by the general public is not all that matters, because general public is more focused on the present while strategic goals concern longer terms goals. Besides the leaders’ understanding of the realistic and relevant implications of this war, may differ from official propaganda (for once they are much more nuanced because they reason in terms of relative power), so I wouldn’t focus so hard on military outcomes independently from strategic concerns.
To me, if at the end of this war, Ukraine remains a sovereign non-pro-Russian non-Russified non-demilitarised country (even without Crimea), NATO members will increase in number and military capacity at the expense of Russian security, the overall Russian military projection capacity and reputation will be significantly decreased, the Russian propaganda machine in the West wrecked, and Russian economy impoverished & decoupled from the West long enough (whatever else being equal like the Rest relative neutrality), then Russia has much more likely lost its strategic power competition against the US and the power status it wanted so badly to be acknowledged by the West. So it doesn’t matter if Russia keeps Crimea&Donbas and sells this as a victory against the US/NATO/West to the Russians. Anyways, I’m not sure that the West is ready to leave Crimea to Russia, neither that the Russia nuclear threat is enough deterrent for all annexed regions (including Crimea). Besides this year is going to be decisive also for the future presidential elections, in Russia before the US. So there are domestic politics incentives pressing for a resolution of this war. We will see.

Again, how do you actually prevent a Russian victory? — boethius

Define "Russian victory" and provide evidence from Russian officials in support of it.

The Greatest Nuclear Threat we face is a Russian Victory, The Atlantic. — Wayfarer

:up:

Possibly. But do you think this is what is happening in practice? Do you think people are becoming deeper, more thoughtful and more in touch with themselves? Do you think modern societies are progressing away from frivolousness, stupidity, and superficiality towards character, intelligence and creativity? Do you think there is less and less evidence of mental conflict evidenced through reduced levels of mental illness, unhappiness, anxiety and drug use? Or are you positing this is as a positive potential in current society that has yet to be realised? — Baden

Your questions suggest some shared understanding/assessment about what constitutes "becoming deeper, more thoughtful and more in touch with themselves" or "character, intelligence and creativity" or "unhappiness". As well as a share understanding of the verifiability of trends correlating certain social factors (e.g. "commodification" of identities) with "mental illness, unhappiness, anxiety and drug use". Both suggestions would require further elaboration to become more rationally challenging.

Anyways, there are some other questions your questions suggest in turn: should we let people explore their identities even if this turns out to be bad for them or should we teach people about their identities even this turns out to be bad for them? If letting anybody explore identities implies costs and risks, should we let people explore their identities at their own expense/risk or share the expense/risk collectively as much as possible? I think that what you consider commodification of identities answers both questions in a certain way. And that the notion of "commodification of identities" is also supposed to frame them in a negative light, because it suggests exploitation (some self-interested social agents sell a variety of goods/services designed for identity seekers despite their potential side effects and make money out of it), while the issue that we must deal with prior to discussing exploitation is the desirable balance between freedom and safety in satisfying individual needs within a community. Indeed, even self-interest, money, or power can themselves constitute identities to be consumed by those who possess them.

The aggregated views of {all the people who live within that border} has no meaning. It's just a random means of stratification unrelated to the opinion being aggregated. As such, all this talk of Ukrainian agency and Ukrainian objectives is nothing but propaganda. There's no moral weight at all to the happenstance aggregate opinion of all the people who happen to be encompassed by an arbitrary spatial line. — Isaac

A series of non sequiturs. What one earth does “The aggregated views of {all the people who live within that border} has no meaning” even mean? The aggregated views of “all human beings” has meaning? The aggregated views of “all religious people”? The aggregated views of all supporters of Barcelona football club? The aggregated views of any random family on earth? The aggregated views of the working class? When does an aggregation of views according to whatever grouping function, has meaning at all? What does determine the moral weight of the aggregate opinion of all people grouped in a certain way?
Each period is allusive in its meaning, its logic link to what precedes or follows, and its polemic target. Pure mystification.

To illustrate. If we did want to use the opinion of the people affected to influence our decision... Why aren't we asking those on the Russian side of the border? They'll definitely be affected.... Why are we asking people on the Western border of Ukraine (hundreds of miles away) but not just over that border... Why are we asking the rich Ukrainian businessmann (who arguably has the resources to weather most storms), but not the Yemeni child who might not live in Ukraine but will undoubtedly be more affected? — Isaac

More than illustrating, its muddling even further. Who is “we”? The Western citizens? The Western governments? The participants to this thread? You mean Biden, any ordinary dude in the West, or me should go ask a Yemeni child (what age? 5 years old is fine?) what he thinks of the “special military operation” of Putin in Ukraine and if he agrees on the West to military aid Ukraine and sanction Russia? You mean that if he says yes, then Biden should support Ukraine and solicit the Western leaders to do the same, and if he says no, then Biden shouldn’t? You mean a 5 year old Yemeni kid can decide for the president of the United States what the United States should do? Or you simply mean that state presidents should go around ask random people of other countries what they think about the war to let them influence his decision about what he should do as a president of the USA wrt the war in Ukraine? Are you crazy?! Did you do that yourself?! Did Putin ask a 5 year old Yemeni kid if he agrees on continuing to bomb and kill Ukrainians whatever it takes?!
Why the hypothetical form “If we did want to…”? What happens if we didn't want? Are you giving us other options? Do we have to choose randomly among them? Can we use dices?

I know that this discussion was prompted by the recent banning of Olivier5. In that case I didn't take it to the rest of the staff for discussion. The refusal of moderation, the attitude it was received with, and his suggestion that he be banned for all he cared, are what led directly to the ban. Refusal of moderation has been a reason for such bannings before, e.g., The Great Whatever, who was a high-quality poster who refused to make a small change to his spelling habits. — Jamal

Are you admins considering the possibility of revising the banning policy by any chance?

It's a choice. Precisely because admins care to preserve or boost forum quality they do not need to sacrifice good contributors for failing to abide by the rules occasionally which doesn't mean to get rid of bans, just to make the ban policy a little bit more flexible (at least for dubious cases). I'm not questioning the admins, but I would welcome a revision of the banning policy. That's all.

Here's what is written in TPF Guidelines:

Bans:

Admins have the right to ban members. We don't do that lightly, and you will probably be warned about your behaviour if you are under consideration for a ban. However, if you are a spammer, troll, racist or in some other way obviously unsuited to the forum, a summary ban will be applied. Bans are permanent and non-negotiable. Returning banned members will be rebanned. — Amity

OK I missed that. Yet a more flexible approach concerning the banning policy might still be more beneficial than a rigid one to this forum.

Agreed. But that doesn't seem to matter. Rules is rules.

As you might imagine, defiance is the worst response, not because it might be insulting, but because it's a refusal to play by the rules. — Hanover — Amity

I don't know what happened. In any case, even if rules is rules, sanctions for transgression are discretionary. So admins can still reason on case by case basis, and proportion sanctions to the severity of the transgression, without denying a second chance for positive long-term contributors.

But why a definitive banning instead of a temporary or a progressive banning (e.g. do it once and I'll ban you for one week, do it twice and I'll ban you for 3 weeks, do it thrice and I'll ban you forever)? Olivier5 wasn't like Bartricks at all.

I don't see the reason for a permanent banning for long-term positive contributors that violated the netiquette on occasions (compare Bartricks vs Olivier5). One could introduce a temporary banning or a progressive banning.

In TPF, is banning always permanent?!

he focused upon how the conflict of methods developed to establish facts beyond personal experience came to be used to explain that phenomena itself — Paine

The scientific method of natural sciences may be said to go "beyond personal experience" but not "beyond experience". Indeed, "experience" is key in empirical research (including any empirical research about "experience"!) as much as the notions of "spacetime", "mass", "charge" are key in physics.

The topic was the motives and objectives of 'Ukraine'. Since 'Ukraine' is an arbitrary line drawn on a map, it doesn't have any unified motive, nor objective and if one were to take an aggregate (vote, poll, whatever) the outcome would be different depending on where you put the line without any hint of a natural break.

As such appeal to such a notion morally is absurd. — Isaac

The comments you cite say that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian identity, history, language and culture. I've also argued that there's no such thing as the will of the Ukrainians, or the motive of the Ukrainians. I've argued that no such thing exists because Ukraine (like all other countries) is an arbitrary line drawn by powerful people based on the amount of resources they had the power to control at the time. It does not in any way 'capture' some natural grouping of people all of whom think alike. It would be no more real then me taking a quick glance at the posts on religion here and announcing that "the belief of TPF is that there is a God".

None of this prevents groups of people from ephemerally having common goals. what it does is remove any moral weight behind that commonality. — Isaac

Not only the idea that “national identities” are not natural groupings is pointless because nobody is arguing otherwise, but it is also fallacious to suggest, as your argument does, that natural groupings would justify moral claims because they are not arbitrary. Indeed, it’s a naturalistic fallacy to argue that from natural groupings (like “we are all human beings”) we can imply moral claims (therefore “it’s immoral committing to arbitrary groupings like national identities”). On the other side, non-natural groupings can justify moral claims to the extent that moral commitments (along with feelings and pragmatic reasoning) constitute non-natural groupings, like national identities, religious identities, political identities, etc.
And even if you still consider such “national identity” or patriotic commitments arbitrary because allegedly based on arbitrary lines drawn on a map, that wouldn’t be enough for you to consider them wrong, indeed you also believe that moral claims are ultimately arbitrary as arbitrary preferences [1]

Of course, appeal to such a notion pragmatically is very useful (democracy is a pragmatic appeal to the aggregated will of an arbitrary group of people), but that's not what's going on here. Not only does Ukraine not currently have a functioning democracy (a pragmatic problem), but the results of any such democratic process don't carry great moral weight. My country democratically voted for Brexit. They were wrong to. It's wrongness is not somehow superseded by its being the 'will of the people'.

It is wrong to risk the lives of innocents over a border dispute. It being 'the will of the Ukrainians' doesn't make it less wrong. — Isaac

Large groups of people can agree on a course of action and still be morally wrong about it. — Isaac

A part from the Brexit example (where is the argument supporting the claim that the democratically chosen Brexit was morally wrong?), who on earth is denying the possibility that “the will of people” can be morally wrong? Nobody, right? From that possibility doesn’t follow at all that Ukraine doesn’t actually have a moral right to self-defence against Russian aggression. So either you provide compelling arguments supporting the claim that Ukraine does not have a moral right to self-defence against Russian aggression. Or you provide compelling arguments supporting the claim that the Ukrainian government doesn’t have legitimacy to exercise such right.
The moral claim that “It is wrong to risk the lives of innocents over a border dispute” is not enough compelling because it could be also wrong to risk lives and freedoms of innocents by surrendering to the demands of a genocidal regime.

[1]

My moral claims are arbitrary. My preferences arbitrary. — “Isaac

The rewriting of history has begun. Now, apparently the country we all happily relied on for energy, and foreign investment. The one whose allies we happily rattled. That country we apparently always knew was a serious military threat because of it's obvious imperialist intent. It's not at all a hastily constructed narrative to promote war profiteering. — Isaac

Who is "we"? We are not a natural group you know. The idea that an arbitrary string of characters like "we" on a forum post encompasses a unique identity is patent nonsense. The idea that "we all" happily relied on Russia for energy and business for the same reason is, again, patent nonsense: people's reasons might have ranged all the way from pro-Russian business profiteering (true for the major leading economies in Western Europe especially Germany) to borderline pro-Putin political profiteering (e.g. Trump, LePen, Salvini, Farrage) to all-sorts of anxiogenic media coverage profiteering (great recession, Islamic terrorism, immigration, pandemic) exploited by pro-Russian info-war and troll armies. Not to mention that "we all" gave for granted that NATO was enough deterrent to discourage aggression of such magnitude and proximity by a greedy authoritarian and nuclear-weapon power. And that's why "we" apparently didn't know Russia was a serious military threat until Russia invaded Ukraine and to some extent "we" still don't know apparently.

The reason why so many in this discussion cannot seem to get their heads around viewing this in any other grouping than by nationality. As if Zelensky (net worth $20 million), Putin (net worth $70 Billion), and Biden (net worth $9 Million) were not all in the same group, and far more separate from the working classes of Russia, Ukraine and America who each have far more in common with each other than with any of their ruling classes.

As if a flag carried more significance than being able to afford a roof, food, or medical care. — Isaac

Do you mean that once they get their heads around viewing Zelensky (net worth $20 million), Putin (net worth $70 Billion), and Biden (net worth $9 Million) in the same group (because of course so many here don’t see that, and desperately need guru Isaac tell them, indeed guru Isaac has a zealously edited record of all millions, billions, trillions and zillions of dollars that each and single Master of the Universe directly sucked out of millions, billions, trillions and zillions of working class children’s blood, right?), obviously it’s going to be evident that Ukraine must surrender to Russian deal-breaker demands and acknowledge its legitimate grievances in a peace deal, and affording a roof, food, or medical care carries more significance than a flag?
Or you mean that if Ukraine actually surrenders to Russian deal-breaker demands and acknowledges its legitimate grievances in a peace deal, there is a greater chance that so many in this discussion will finally get their heads around the fact that Ukrainian, Russian and American working classes have far more in common with each other than with any of their ruling classes? And that being able to afford a roof, food, or medical care carries more significance than a flag?
Oh no… you must certainly mean that if Ukraine surrenders to all Russian deal-breaker demands and acknowledges its legitimate grievances in a peace deal, we all are so much closer to have the working classes of the world united in rebellion against their ruling classes, and finally able to afford roof, food, or medical care for all humanity ever after, right? "Power to the Imagination!", right?

And caricaturing people’s views is so abso-fucking-lutely fun, right?

I'm simply saying that, in a conscripted army, motivations to fight are even more diverse than in a free one. Even in a regular army people's reasons might range all the way from borderline psychopathy to heroic selflessness. Most common seems to be nationalism. In a conscripted army, you can add to that range the fear of reprisals for refusal. — Isaac

Sure, I guess it’s the same for people who have to pay taxes: some agree with the taxes and are fine with that, some would have preferred softer taxes, some really hate paying taxes. So what?

As such, we cannot possibly 'take into account' their agency. They are not an agent, they are hundreds of thousands of separate agents with separate goals, taking them into account is nigh on impossible. It's certainly not something to be done by clinging slavishly to the account of their agency given by parties with a strong vested interest in presenting it a certain way. — Isaac

One thing is the agency of individual citizens, another the agency of government. The choice of Ukraine to fight with armed forces of conscripted individual citizens is taken by the Ukrainian government. So, first of all, do you have any compelling arguments showing that the Ukrainian government is illegitimate or is taking decisions violating national/international laws? Do you have compelling evidences showing how wide is the lack of support of the Ukrainian government?
Coz, you know, literally anybody can have strong vested interest in presenting Ukrainian agency in a certain way. Even anonymous members of this forum like you: e.g. if you are paid to spread pro-Russian propaganda, or if you are personally so frustrated by your material and social life that you can’t help but enjoy sharing your populist fantasies and memes with likeminded people, or if you are abso-fucking-lutely determined to sparkle a new glorious revolution with your old friend Engels in order to at last end capitalist exploitation on earth or at least break free from your asylum.

Of course Ukraine does not have its own history, language and culture. It's an arbitrary line on a map, it's absurd to think it somehow contains a natural grouping of language, history and culture. — Isaac

Of course?! It’s really baffling how many intellectual failures you can so skilfully concentrate in just a few lines.
First of all, of course, Ukraine has its own history, so much so that there are historians expert at it and giving lectures about it like “Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8)
Second, who on earth is arguing that arbitrary lines on a map contain natural grouping of language, history and culture?! Nobody. So what else may be the purpose of objecting to imaginary claims as if they were actually made by your targeted interlocutors other than scoring imaginary points?!
Third, it’s precisely the fact that grouping of language, history and culture are not natural but cultural that they may very much need inheritable historical record in order to preserve or extend such non-natural groupings over time.
Four, even our notions of natural groupings (e.g. racial division of human beings) have their history which in turn may very well depend on non-natural groupings’ history (like the emergence of states supporting universal human rights against racial discriminations and a public education denouncing pseudoscientific racial beliefs).

Criticism of US foreign policy isn't "pro-Putin". — boethius


Sure. Yet, so far, you just happened to offer recommendations in support of all Russian "legitimate grievances" and deal-breaker demands perfectly in line with Russian propaganda's recommendations (practically, copy and paste). Now you wanna teach me that Russian propaganda is not pro-Putin, yes? — neomac

You can not serve 2 masters: you will love the one and hate the other. Clearly, you serve US interests in this conversation. — boethius

Your recommendations clearly serve Putin (=pro-Putin) so you love Putin and hate the US (=Americanophobe), yes?

Criticism of US foreign policy isn't "pro-Putin". — boethius

Sure. Yet, so far, you just happened to offer recommendations in support of all Russian "legitimate grievances" and deal-breaker demands perfectly in line with Russian propaganda's recommendations (practically, copy and paste). Now you wanna teach me that Russian propaganda is not pro-Putin, yes?

Listing random examples from a dictionary is pointless if they do not clarify what "legitimate" in "legitimate grievance" is supposed to mean. Here some reading for you: https://uswlocals.org/system/files/whatisagrievance.pdf

Negotiation is about arriving at agreements, which requires considering the perspective of the counter-party and how they see the world and what they would see as potentially resolving the situation and preferable to further conflict. — boethius

Fine with me, but you are no longer talking about legitimate grievance here.

we agree this client has legitimate grievances, it means we believe the client would have a strong case to sue us, so we should be nice and try to solve the problem. — boethius

The case can be considered strong precisely because pre-established laws and contracts can grant legitimacy to the grievance to the client.

the concept of legitimate grievance simply expresses what you think does actually need to be resolved in some way for the other side to do what you want. — boethius

You are evidently confused. One can think that something needs to be resolved independently of the legitimacy of the grievance. If somebody is negotiating a ransom with a kidnapper that doesn't imply in anyway that laws, moral or contracts give legitimacy to the kidnapper' demand. An agreement is found for pragmatic reasons not because a right has been acknowledged. Indeed, even after agreement and the transaction take place, the police can still be after and find the kidnapper, and return the ransom to the victims without the kidnapper having a say about the legitimacy of keeping the ransom just because he and the victim found a pragmatic agreement.

So, when I say, for example, Nazi's in Ukraine is a legitimate grievance, it's expressing my opinion that we in the West should also not want Nazi's in Ukraine. — boethius

Oh it's your opinion about what Westerners should do and not a fact about Russian legitimate grievances. I thought so.

However, it's when you want to negotiate a settlement that the other side may accept, then it is necessary to consider things from their point of view and what grievances they have and which are legitimate. — boethius

Sure there might be demands that are legitimate. But you made a list of what you take to be legitimate grievances from Russia, without offering any plausible argument in support of their legitimacy wrt pre-established set of moral/legal rules that the West and Russia share. In any case the point is that for Russians the acknowledgment of "legitimate grievances" (like "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault") has less to do with negotiating some material compensation like miserable kidnappers and more to do with things like violation of promises by the Westerners, lack of due respect of Russian sphere of influence, right to defend Russian minorities the way they see fit, right to oppress any independent national movement within their sphere of influence through Russification, right to be treated on the international stage as a superpower very much like the US and China, the extraordinary privilege for states like Ukraine to be dominated by Russia, and the like.

Here you are no longer delving into hypothetical thoughts, you clearly state as a matter of fact “war is totally provoked”, “these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine”, “The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing”, “There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians”. — neomac

These are just facts. I don't claim these are hypotheticals.

And you count them as “legitimate grievance”. Besides since you talk about “entirely justified grievance” and “in total contradiction to the West's ‘values and policies’” (unquestionable proof of Western hypocrisy right?), the gap between “legitimate grievance” and “justified grievance” seems now bridged by the reference to Western shared rules. You look pretty convinced about all this. — neomac


Yes, these totally factual things, documented by our own the Western media (before they got the memo that these subjects were off limits), and are legitimate grievances.

Legitimate grievance does not mean "justified". It's a concept you need to negotiate with people. — boethius

What did you just write?! If the “concept” (intention or extension) of “legitimate grievance” needs to be negotiated then you yourself can not claim as a fact that those I listed are “legitimate grievances”: main parties didn’t negotiate anywhere what “legitimate grievances” Russia may be acknowledged to have.

For example, a murderer, who's just confessed to a murder, could have a legitimate grievance that the police didn't bring him his coffee as they said they would.

Now, if the police don't want anything more from the murderer and seeing as coffee isn't a right, no one recorded the promise of coffee anyways and even if they did there's no damages or relevance to the confession and legal process etc., they could just walk away and say fuck the murderer and his coffee, I ain't doing shit for this sack of crap. So, the coffee remains a legitimate grievance of the murderer but in the grand scheme of moral things a broken promise of coffee is in no way comparable to murder and there's no legal consequence to breaching this contract.

However, let’s say the police want the murderer to keep talking: where's the body? Who else was involved? What was the motivation? etc.

Now, the murderer says "I won't talk more until I get my coffee". I'm pretty sure any detective on the planet would get this murderer a coffee, even if they don't really want to be nice to the murderer. Why? It's a legitimate grievance that needs to be resolved in order to agree on a cooperative action to keep conversing about the murder.

Had the murderer said "I'll talk more, but police are wearing the colour blue, and I hate blue, and to compensate that I want to be let go, all charges dropped etc." doubtful any detective would view this a legitimate grievance reasonable and reasonable demand to resolve this grievance, to continue the conversation. — “boethius

The example starts with an actual (not merely alleged) promise by the police to the murderer to satisfy a petty demand (a coffee) that grants plausibility to the “reasonable” “legitimate grievance” by the murderer (can there be unreasonable “legitimate grievance” then? Or “legitimate grievance” means “reasonable grievance”?) whose relevance ultimately depends on its instrumental value in furthering police goals.
I guess you have in mind the “not one inch eastward” promise which NATO enlargement has putatively violated. But it should be clear why that example is no good analogy: as far as I know, there are no records of such promise (so its actual content and its implications remain unknown, even if it actually happened). In other words, we are talking about an "alleged" promise. One could still concede that there were at least informal assurances, however they didn’t involve the US and Russia, but representatives of the American administration and representatives of the Soviet Union administration, so those assurances were realistically bond to political fate of those administrations (like the JCPOA which, differently from this alleged promise, was a very much recorded agreement and Putin’s “outstanding” and “talented” orange-faced girlfriend withdraw from). The alleged promise or informal assurance wasn’t a petty demand at all since its about critical security concerns of two major nuclear-weapon states, so top priority (and for top priority things informal assurance isn't ideal unless there is no material time to formalise the assurance, of course). Besides Russia is far from being as impotent and self-discrediting as a confessed murderer in a police station: indeed, it's a sovereign state with self-entitled expansionist ambitions and means to make lots of human, material and economic damage to other countries. So question of “legitimacy” can make a difference in terms of propaganda and international recognition wrt peer competitors. Russians could have averted the perceived threat from NATO enlargement by becoming more democratic and less corrupt to the benefit of Russian economy and welfare after the end of the Cold War, yet Putin preferred to invest Russian economic resources and Western trust to nurture Russian oligarchs&siloviki, military buildup and play a power game on the world stage at the expense of the West, most certainly of the US. Unfortunately “if you take a stick and you poke a bear in the eye, that bear is probably going to fight back” right?
Finally, if “promise” is your paradigm case to clarify the notion of “legitimate grievance”, I don’t see how this could clarify other Russian “legitimate grievances” you were talking about.

So, back the Russian and Ukrainian war. If you don't want to negotiate with Russia then there is no need to reflect on their legitimate grievances. However, if you do want to negotiate (want to convince the other party you're dealing with to do something using mere words) then resolving legitimate grievances (in one way or the other) is an essential part of the negotiation process.

The reason the word "legitimate" appears instead of just saying "grievance" is because in a negotiation people start high and settle lower; so, first off, there maybe a whole list of grievances and perhaps many are just padding the negotiation position and aren't really thought of as legitimate by the party presenting them (things they plan to let go of in basically horse trading). Likewise, some grievances maybe authentically felt by the counter-party, but our own side views them as illegitimate and will never satisfy them; but maybe it's possible to come to an agreement anyways if there remains overall enough "compensation" for letting go of the grievances. — “boethius

My point still is that if one side will see the “authentically felt” request (which is different from “legitimate”, “justified” or “reasonable” request, right?) as “illegitimate” but there is a possibility to find an agreement anyways then there is no need to acknowledge the grievance as legitimate AT ALL. Agreeing on a compensation doesn’t equate to acknowledging the legitimacy of the grievance (so no pre-established moral, legal, contractual right/rule that has been violated) but to offering a cost-effective and non-coercive way to let the grievance go away. The semantic link you suggest (“The reason the word ‘legitimate' appears instead of just saying "grievance" is because in a negotiation people start high and settle lower”) is confused and misleading because “legitimacy” is normally understood wrt a pre-established moral, legal, contractual set of rights/rules, and not wrt the acceptability of a negotiated outcome as negotiated prices are on a horse trading. It’s precisely because these are 2 different things that “maybe it's possible to come to an agreement” (negotiated outcome acceptable to both parties) even if “our own side views them as illegitimate” (wrt a pre-established moral, legal, contractual set of rights/rules).

Of course, you can argue that Russia's grievances don't matter, even if some are true, as there is no reason to negotiate. — “boethius

I’m arguing against your notion of Russian “legitimate grievance” even if Russian grievances may be grounded on partial truths. And even if there are no Russian legitimate grievances as far as I understand them, there might still be a good reason to negotiate at some point if the negotiation has a cost-effective way, acceptable to all involved parties, to let the grievance go away.

Of course, if your goal is:

Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! Yet if the endgame was stopping Russia, the quickest effective way would be for the West to force Ukraine to surrender to all Russian demands, or not even start a “proxy war” against Russia in the first place, right?! But that’s neither the Western endgame nor the Ukrainians’. So YES concern for the Ukrainian welfare is LITERALLY and REASONABLY compatible with not stopping Russia if that means Ukrainian surrender.
As always, I’m responsible for what I write, not for what you understand. — neomac


Then there is no reason to want Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, but rather it's better to just spread propaganda to increase the will for Ukrainians to fight even if they don't "stop" Russia and their country is completely wrecked as well as increase motivation of the West to supply arms and so on. — “boethius

I don’t see any evidence in support of the idea that Ukrainians will be significantly encouraged to fight by foreign propaganda. The evidences available to me support the idea that all the Russian atrocities Ukrainians are suffering from (that strikingly echoes Russian historical oppression) constitute well enough motivation for Ukrainians to keep fighting. Western propaganda is mainly for domestic consumption to boost cohesion and support for Ukraine, precisely because the West is not experiencing what Ukrainians are experiencing, do not understand all the relevant stakes as strategic decision makers do, and the West is still plagued by info-war and pro-Russian propaganda like yours. Indeed, the very reciprocal claim of yours is true: it's Ukrainian propaganda which is very much active to encourage Western administrations and general public to support Ukrainian even more. Not surprisingly, there are people here who even complain about such "selfish" and "childish" attitude on the Ukrainian part at the expense of the West (so the Ukrainians are the ones to exploit the Westerners, go figure!) .

"not stopping the Russians" includes an immensely costly the war for the Ukrainians and then simply losing the war — “boethius

That’s your speculation whose plausibility is questionable for the many reasons I pointed out. And this won’t change no matter how many times you repeat it.

To me other notions to clarify are those of “victory” and “loss”. They may have a meaning on the battlefield — neomac

They definitely do have meaning on the battlefield, but I understand since Ukraine isn't achieving these "victories" as of late you've made up some different meanings for victory to cope with that. — boethius

If you have this wrong impression, it's because you do not understand my reasoning. Or more likely you are playing dumb. Since your analysis is poor on facts, logic and depth, the best you can do is to rely on arbitrary speculations, sophisms and accusations, like the attack ad hominem you just offered.
Indeed, questioning the notion of “victory” and “defeat” is not only very much legitimate wrt all analysable dimensions of this war (military, political, economic, moral, strategic, etc.) as I’ve been discussing for a while now, but absolutely nothing unheard of (https://www.npr.org/2018/01/29/580811124/military-victory-but-political-defeat-the-tet-offensive-50-years-later). There is even a very well known expression that relativizes the notion of “military victory” to other relevant contextual considerations: “a Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory).
So e.g. “Putin should heed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent advice to him – that this is not an era of war – and desist before Russia sinks while trying to achieve a Pyrrhic victory.”
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-editorials/ukraine-escalation-russia-is-only-looking-at-a-pyrrhic-victory-putin-must-heed-modis-advice/

Anyhow such geopolitical victory doesn’t depend just on Russian means, resolution, or escalation threats, but also on Western cohesion, resolution and vision in addressing the Russian security and economic challenge. This will also be an example also for other authoritarian regimes, like China. And an important premise to repair or rebuild more convenient relationships between the West and the Rest in the interest of everybody. — neomac

You are just completely delusional. The West does not represent the "interest of everybody" and is not seeking, in this war or any other policy dimension, solutions that are in the "interest of everybody”. — boethius

Why delusional?
I did not claim anywhere that “the West does represent the ‘interest of everybody’”, yes?
It’s reasonable to expect that sovereign states have their national interest as top priority, yes?
And that doesn’t exclude the possibility of cooperation among sovereign states pursuing each their own national interest, yes?

Even more bizarre, you don't hesitate to just flat out say US's actions are justified due to their hegemonic position (and just ignore the fact that if Russia wins, then they are the hegemon, and therefore justified in your framework, in the region). — boethius

You are messing up with my claims again. As I said many times, justification depends on shared assumptions. Justification in strategic terms is not the same as justification in moral or legal terms, although they may converge. Russia and the US are competing for hegemony, i.e. extending their sphere of influence beyond their borders at the expense of the competitors to the point of becoming dominant. This is somehow “physiological” to geopolitical entities and geopolitical theories may explain why is that. One can still question the rationality of geopolitical agents’ strategic choices based on pertinent and reasonable strategic assumptions. I discussed Russian vs American strategic reasoning wrt both threat perception and response. And my conclusion is that overall the US is following a more reasonable and effective strategy than Russia (compare just the military, economic, reputational damage is Russia suffering wrt the US so far). On the other side, the aftermath of this war will more clearly determine whose strategy was more effective and likely update the hegemonic status of the competitors. But also notice that doesn’t exclude the possibility that aleatory or now hidden factors may favour the US or Russia’s hegemonic struggle at some point independently from the relative rationality of their respective strategy. Anyways, I’m interested to discuss about rational strategies (that’s what I mean by “strategically justified”) and outcomes that depend on them. That’s all.

Here the problems I see:
First, you seem asking me to solve an equation whose form and variables are unknown. What does “lose” for Ukraine mean in quantifiable terms? What’s the likelihood of loss and win and how did you calculate it? What’s the time range you are considering? What’s the cost threshold that if exceeded will make the cost unreasonably high? What quantifiable parameters would make you consider a Western plan a “‘coherent workable’ plan to actually ‘beat’ Russia”? — neomac

These are your problems, not mine. I don't care about beating Russia. — boethius

What?! You are expecting from me to provide such an “account” but I find your request unreasonable, especially because it’s not me playing the geopolitical game. All I can discuss is how I understand the game being played and my reasons to support one side or the other, but as I argued neither require such unreasonable accounting. So no, it’s not “my problem”.

I'm not a Russophobe. I didn't live in fear of Russia before this war, I don't live in fear of Russia now. I do fear US escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war, but this is a fear of the international dynamic that's been put in place, mostly by the US "meddling" in Ukrainian elections and internal affairs. — “boethius

So you are not Russophobe but Americanphobe?

My position in this debate is that a negotiated peace is preferable to more war, Zelensky is an idiot, but the West (US / EU) easily has the leverage to negotiate a resolution to the conflict and just ignore the fact Zelensky is an idiot.

And, "loss for Ukraine in quantifiable terms" is easy to define: tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, economy wrecked, massive emigration, and not even achieving anything further on the battle field since last spring but forced to accept Russia control over it's current occupied territory, maybe more. This would definitely be a loss for Ukraine.

Now, if you want to wax whimsically that even if Ukraine loses the war Russia is harmed "enough" geopolitically and there's some Western geopolitical victory of some sort, then even if that were true, Ukraine gets no benefit, so the end result is using the Ukrainians for our own geopolitical ambitions: aka. sacrificing Ukraine to harm Russia. — boethius

Ukrainians may still disagree with you because they managed to preserve their sovereignty, made a future aggression against them (or any other country at risk) by Russia more unlikely, and may rely on Western partnership for rebuilding their countries. Besides, depending on what “some Western geopolitical victory of some sort” for “our own geopolitical ambitions” actually implies for the Ukrainians, the fallout could be the collapse of Putin’s regime and then this in turn may benefit Ukrainian claims over annexed territories, or if Ukraine is stable enough (with or without annexed territories) the West can integrate it more deeply to its economy, political and security system as it happened to other Eastern European countries previously under Soviet Union influence.

I am entirely willing to sacrifice an entire country in war campaign, wars take sacrifice, I am the kind of person who would not hesitate to sit down and write an "equation" concluding millions, or hundreds of millions of people must be sacrificed for what I believe to be right (if it makes sense of course), but I am only willing in a war in which I am actually fighting in and my own country takes losses in the country being sacrificed. This was the old way: "you want us to make a fanatical stand to slow down and attrit the enemy, you get your fucking asses fucking here and do some dying too, otherwise we're suing for peace or straight up surrendering and not damaging our country for nothing".
For example, the UK wanted France to resist Nazi invasion, and so sent an expeditionary force to help with that. It's common sense.

Without that, we are not "allied" with Ukraine, we are cynically manipulating and exploiting them for entirely different geopolitical reasons (in the case of Europe, self-defeating geo-political reasons) with minimum risk to our own soldiers lives and so minimum cause to sit down and really reflect on what are doing and the consequences of our leaders decisions. — boethius

Dude, I don’t really see the point of making it personal. I don’t know you and even if what you claim about yourself was true (and not just virtue signalling), it would be irrelevant to me. BTW you can always enlist in the international legion for Ukraine (https://fightforua.org/ ) where you will certainly find American and British people volunteering to fight for Ukrainians as courageously as you claim to be (and you don’t like virtue signalling, right?), or else you can recommend greater engagement from the West in support of Ukraine instead of recommending against it.
Anyways, the kind of beliefs you suggest such as “Westerners are coward because they are not sending their troops” or “Westerners can’t truly call themselves Ukrainian allies until they send their troops” or “Westerners are exploiting the Ukrainians because they are not sending their troops” are really beside the point. By far. States are expected to prioritise their national security depending on threat perception, and if they do it rationally, they do not engage in random tests of courage just to make you happy. Western military interventions don’t need to be with boots on the ground if available air forces and long range missiles can do the job more effectively. The problem is that American decision makers have to be careful about (domestic and international) consensus much more than authoritarian regimes (e.g. the nuclear blackmail wasn’t available to Nazis as it is to Russians), and Western coordination is harder to achieve since the complexity and uncertainties of the game leads to non-negligeable unresolved conflicting interests/views within the West: e.g. French understanding of European security is very much different than the American one, Germany has currently limited military capacity/culture and is still struggling with the economic downsides of this war and its global implications, the US is struggling for domestic stability and concerned by the incumbent security threat represented by China. So the problem is more cohesion and vision, then cowardice.
Moreover Ukrainians are asking for Western support and Westerners are providing it, if that’s fine with them and for that reason they call Westerners their allies, I don’t see any terminological issue here. The idea that Westerners are exploiting the Ukrainians because so far they didn’t directly and officially engage in Russia with their military forces, is very much dependent on the moral compass one takes into account or committed to. As far as I’m concerned, the moral imperative for Western governments is still Western national security (NOT Ukrainian security, welfare, lives! Ukrainian security, welfare, lives is the moral imperative of Ukrainian government! So if they feel exploited it's on them to denounce and argue for it in the first place), and I believe Westerners would likely intervene more directly in Ukraine against the Russians, as the British intervened in support of the French against the Nazis, if the perceived threat from Russia was as intolerable as the Nazis threat was to the British. That’s why Ukrainian propaganda tries its best to show how serious the Russian threat to the West is and encourage the West to provide greater military support or even to substantially change the nature of the military engagement in favor of a more direct participation (e.g. by declaring no-fly zone). So while you claim that Westerners are Russophobe and cowards, I claim that Westerners do not seem, as you would say, enough “Russophobe” (by coincidence, you aren’t Russophobe either yes?) and that’s why they are more reluctant to engage (by coincidence, you are more for peace negotiation than greater Western engagement, yes?), but not necessarily cowards (by coincidence, you are not coward, yes?) unless one takes the Western fear of escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war as a form of cowardice (by coincidence, you fear the US escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war, yes?).
And even if these circumstances would still count as a case of “exploitation” (mainly thanks to those Westerners that, like you but only by coincidence, are not “Russophobe” and fear escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war, and therefore they do not want direct engagement, just peace negotiation and consensual surrender by the Ukrainians), for the Ukrainians the lesser evil is still to be “exploited” by the West, instead of cave in to Russian demands and “legitimate grievances”.
Finally, if we are talking about a strategic plan where consequences are taken in due account, suggesting that you are “entirely willing to sacrifice an entire country in war campaign” clashes with your “exploitation” objection against my views, since even in your case the sacrificed country would obtain no benefits anyways (no matter if your own country takes losses in the country being sacrificed, still your country will survive while the other is entirely sacrificed). And suggesting that you “would not hesitate to sit down and write an ‘equation’ concluding millions, or hundreds of millions of people must be sacrificed for what I believe to be right (if it makes sense of course)” overlooks the fact you can not even offer intelligible examples of such ‘equation’ in the Ukrainian case (BTW what was the British ‘equation’ for deciding to support the French with their troops against the Nazis back then?). If we are talking about principles independently from the consequences, then the ‘equation’ would be trivial since we are allowed to ignore the consequences by default, and there would be no costs to calculate. So for example if Ukrainians are fighting for recognition of their self-determination no matter what, they may fight until their country and people are entirely sacrificed to that cause. And the Westerners would not be exploitative if they were committed to the Ukrainian cause no matter what, so e.g. by sending as many troops as necessary to prove they really care about the Ukrainian cause beyond any doubt (to you of course). The problem is that you also dismissed the Ukrainian fight for principle (just “territory and national pride”) given the number of casualties (“the cost to Ukraine is immense”, and notice that the root meaning of “immense” is “immeasurable” so no soluble “equation” whatsoever) as if no “fighting for principle no matter what” justifies any number of casualties (unless it’s for denazifying for good and exclusively Ukraine, maybe?). And since one can’t realistically expect that Western states fight for the sake of Ukrainian national interest (BTW did the British send troops in support to France against the Nazis just for the sake of it no matte what, or for their national interest?), any support of the Ukrainian fight by the West would be exploitative by default, with or without sending its own troops. In other words, your conjecture is just wishful thinking even within your frame of thoughts.

What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”? — neomac


The main on is of course NATO expansion. When Russia mentions moving missiles and forward operating bases and so on closer to Russia is a threat to Russia, that's obviously true. One of the quid pro quo agreements with Russia in the expansion of NATO was that missile bases wouldn't advance. The actual military threats are hardware and personnel, not the actual NATO treaty, so bringing countries into NATO is one thing, and actually advancing NATO hardware, systems and soldiers is another.

In terms of real military analysis, the central military justification for Russia war is that NATO installed a missile base in the Baltics. That NATO says it was to protect against Iran and is only missile defence is entirely meaningless if you want to negotiate an end to a conflict with Russia.

There is actually a stable form of NATO enlargement in making NATO bigger but not only moving little to no hardware closer to Russia but the Easter-European states themselves becoming more stable vis-a-vis Russia and also each other and both lowering their defence expenditures because they are in NATO as well as depending on NATO command structures to function so unable really to do any independent military actions anyways. For, previous to NATO expansion you can have disputes between East-European countries entirely unrelated to Russia or NATO but that then draft Russia and/or NATO into the conflict and the it growing into a regional conflict and getting out of control. Prior to NATO directly threatening Russia with advancing missile bases and proposing Georgia and Ukraine join NATO (and notice the combination of abandoning the quid pro quo of not advancing advanced hardware will also wanting to expand right to Russia's border, is something any general would say warrants a war, and there'd be only political reasons not to go to war; this is a sad reality of NATO's actions over the last decades, that this war is totally provoked and any NATO member would evaluate things militarily exactly the same as Russia has).

So, obviously if NATO wants peace with Russia it will likely have to recognise it has to take a less threatening posture with Russia. Advancing missile bases is particular stupid if the goal is peace. Obviously, neutral Ukraine are removing the missile base would be one way of recognising this grievance. If you want Ukraine in NATO, then to convince the Russians you'd need to propose a lot more compensation for that, but that seems essentially an impossible deal, but maybe there's some sort of "NATO light" version or something.

There are definitely the Nazi's in Ukraine. As a Westerner I don't think that should be acceptable to the West, let alone the Russians. And if you look into the issue with reporting pre-invasion, these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine. It should be, first of all, Western policy to not support and arm Nazi’s. That Western media lauds these "ultra nationalists" as "the best fighters" that Ukraine simply needs, is even more outrageous.

The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing in total contradiction to the West's "values and policies" about minority rights, is also simply an entirely justified grievance, which is text-book prejudice due to ethnicity and language that the West claims to be against.

There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians, but generally in a peaceful resolution to a war, all the war crimes are ignored. As with any settlement, one of the main benefits is not admitting any wrongdoing.

We had trials against the Third Reich ... because we won. There was no trials of Western war crimes even if they were of comparable or worse nature than some convicted Nazi's.

Benefits of winning is also likewise not needing to admit any wrong doing — “boethius

.



Here you are no longer delving into hypothetical thoughts, you clearly state as a matter of fact “war is totally provoked”, “these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine”, “The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing”, “There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians”. And you count them as “legitimate grievance”. Besides since you talk about “entirely justified grievance” and “in total contradiction to the West's ‘values and policies’” (unquestionable proof of Western hypocrisy right?), the gap between “legitimate grievance” and “justified grievance” seems now bridged by the reference to Western shared rules. You look pretty convinced about all this.

I would disagree on matter of facts and legitimacy/justification (as I pointed out in the previous comments). But I’m not surprised to hear them. Such alleged “legitimate grievances” are perfectly in line with a propaganda technique called “accusation in a mirror” where Russia is accusing the West/NATO/US/Ukraine of violations Russia itself is arguably committing in a more significant and more documented way than Russia can ever prove against the West, no matter how much grains of truth there are in Russian accusations. Indeed, an ex-KGB agent ascended to presidency and established a more authoritarian and personalist regime like Putin, may well rely on all kinds of psychological warfare and disinformatia practiced during the cold war, multiplied by the channels made available by the current technologies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood), right?
Besides your loose notion of “legitimate grievance” enables any non-controversial grain of truth in Russian propaganda against the West or Ukraine to ascend to the status of “legitimate grievance” despite the fact that other relevant contextual considerations may severely undermine their status of “legitimate grievance” as I understand this notion.
Anyway I’m gonna add a few more thoughts on such “legitimate grievance”:
Concerning NATO expansion, if the issue is “the actual military threats are hardware and personnel, not the actual NATO treaty” then the issue is not NATO expansion but NATO offensive military capacity from Ukraine and American bases. While I understand that might constitute a future security threat to some extent because a country like Russia with the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world plus more discretionary military doctrine as deterrence and offensive apparatus in case of existential threat can be hardly seen as a vulnerable state and liable to NATO aggressive attacks (and “any NATO member would evaluate things militarily exactly the same” as I said), this could have been handled differently especially in a time where: A) NATO was at its low in terms of popularity given the isolationist trends in the US (president Trump being in line with such trends) and the greater focus on China, the opposition of France and Germany to NATO expansion in Ukraine and to increase military budget, and NATO unpopularity among interested parties (Ukrainians didn’t want to join NATO until Crimean annexation, Finns and Swedes didn’t want to join NATO until the beginning of this war by Russia). B) If West/NATO/US was hostile to Russia as the US was against the Soviet Union globalisation to the point of ensuring Western stable dependency on Russian money and resources (enabling Russian blackmailing strategy during this war), wouldn’t have been possible. C) The issue of offensive military capacity could have been handled diplomatically the way the Cuban missile crisis was, or even better by Russia giving costly security guarantees to all Eastern European countries (including Ukraine) that were tempted to join NATO. But it wasn’t, because it’s not matter of NATO offensive military capacity, to Putin (and the military-economic-intellectual elites he surrounded himself with) it was all about hegemonic status and capacity of ideological, political and military projection outside Russian boarders on the world stage like the US and China. In other words, Russian “legitimate grievance” about NATO expansion and “justification” for their atrocities against their brother Ukrainians is all about hegemonic status and what goes with it (“territory and national pride” as you would say).
Notice that the concept of “provocation” would have no justificatory power if we didn’t reason in terms of agency (so responsibility) and shared rules (like we do with law & moral). If “provocation” has merely causal explanatory power (like stimulus and reflex response), then the US too and Ukraine too responded to the threatening stimulus (actual, future or imaginary as you wish) constituted by Russia. In other words, all geopolitical agents are de facto security maximiser systems that respond to perceived threats by reflex: Russia perceives threats from the West and it reacts accordingly, the West perceives threats from Russia and it reacts accordingly, whatever the consequences are for anybody involved, period! And you can navigate up-stream the causal chain of actions and reactions back to human prehistory in search for who was the first one to begin (maybe God?), so good luck with that! Anyway, in that case, “legitimacy” is void of any justificatory meaning, and “legitimate grievance” equates to “perceived threat to counter” and “provocation” is whatever the “provoked” recipient perceives as such: Hitler’s extermination of Jews was a response to a legitimate grievance, Soviet Union’s genocide of Ukrainians was a response to a legitimate grievance, all terrorist attacks (including decapitation videos) committed by jihadists were a response to legitimate grievance, the US war against Iraq and Afghanistan were a response to a legitimate grievance (including all American lies and propaganda). Even if Russia launched a strategic nuclear bomb to Kiev on the 24 February, that would still be a response to a legitimate grievance.
On the other side if “provocation” has justificatory meaning what are the shared moral/legal/contractual rules and the agency that would grant such meaning to “provocation”? In international relations the shared rules are the ones provided by international law centered around the notion of “sovereignty” (and related right to self-defence) and NATO expansion didn’t breach international law rules nor security treaties or even official agreements with Russia (BTW, United States could also withdraw from JCPOA, thanks to Putin’s “outstanding” and “talented” orange-faced girlfriend, remember that?). While Russia manifestly breached Ukrainian sovereignty by aggressing Ukraine and annexing Ukrainian territories without even having the pretexts US exploited in occupying (but not annexing pieces of) Iraq and Afghanistan for a regime change like WMD (by an authoritarian and expansionist regime) and sponsoring terroristic attacks overseas (by an Islamist regime). In other words, respecting Russian hegemonic status and sphere of influence outside its boarders (Ukraine included) is shared rule neither within western moral standards nor within international laws. From a geopolitical point of view, the hegemonic status can clearly be the object of contention between competing great powers and result from certain power dynamics depending on available means and effective strategic usage of such available means. But, in this domain, the political (if not moral) imperative is that each sovereign state should prioritise its national security over others. So NATO “provocations” (expansion and support to Ukraine) may be effective moves (despite Mearsheimer’s theories and diagnosis) by the Western powers if they disrupt Russian projection power, and therefore they would be strategically justified (which is different but not incompatible with saying that they are morally or legally justified).
In any case, Russian craving for hegemonic status is neither a moral nor a legal/contractual obligation/commitment to other states, so violating Russian expectations based on its understanding of its power relations with the West constitutes - pace Mearsheimer - no legitimate grievance. Just sheer self-entitled imposition against the West/NATO/US, with no Western-acknowledgeable “justification”. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the end of the West-led World Order. And since the legal/moral notion of “legitimacy” is also important to settle issues like justice and reparation (for Ukrainian killed, deported people, other war crimes, etc. and all other material damages in Ukraine), talking about “legitimate grievance” is ultimately a demand for impunity.

Concerning Ukrainian neo-nazi extremists and war crimes, even if we ignore the fog of lies that Russians spread around these subjects, there are certainly facts that Western governments don’t need to overlook, because Ukraine is not part of the EU/NATO yet, so investigation/policies against far-right extremism and war crimes (like with corruption) may be required for Ukraine to join the West. Currently, however, the assessment of such facts can be deeply biased by pro-Russian propaganda. Indeed, Russia has a much bigger problem with war crimes and far-right extremists than Ukraine (https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/if-russia-serious-about-de-nazification-it-should-start-home). Not to mention that Russia (especially under Putin) is a notoriously active promoter of far-right and neonazi movements in the West. So, frankly speaking, Putin does not have a problem with Ukrainian neonazi because they are neonazi, but because they are anti-Russian (which feeling now is more widely and intensely felt in Ukraine thanks to Putin’s special military operation)! In other words, talking about “denazification of Ukraine” is just a rhetoric trope that can be more conveniently exploited by Russian propaganda for domestic and Western audience (however different the historical memories about the Nazi period may be) instead of “Russification of Ukraine”.
So whatever issue Ukraine has with far-right extremism and nenonazi, that can not be used by Russia in defending its international rights or to support its demands given all that the West can justifiably retort against Russia. What’s worst is that given Putin’s authoritarian regime and long reign, responsibilities concerning both accusations (wrt far-right extremism and war crimes) can be more easily pinned on Putin than on Zelensky.

All I can agree with is that for several reasons the grievance about Crimea and Russian minorities in Donbas were more amenable to international law solutions (even more balanced between Russia and Ukraine) and therefore more easy to legitimise. For the same reasons, I wouldn’t be surprised if, at the negotiation table, the Westerners would still be more open on those points than the Ukrainians, despite the annexations. Yet there are also non-negligible economic reasons why neither Ukraine nor the West will concede those regions that easily for good reasons: with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia extorted related Black Sea shelf reserves of oil and gas owned by Ukraine, so preventing Ukraine from becoming a potential energetic competitor that the West is interested to integrate (https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2014/05/27/the-energy-dimensions-of-russias-annexation-of-crimea/index.html).

Finally what kind of legitimate grievances against the Russians (notice how the negotiation requirements are framed around pro- and cons- for Russia, because they are the ones really need convincing not the West or the Ukrainians) is Russia required to recognize as a first step? — neomac


Yes, the negotiation from our Western perspective is mainly around the pros-and-cons for Russia, since it's them that we are negotiating with.

The first step in negotiating a settlement is coming up with a compromise of the key issues that you think is acceptable to the other party, the "deal breakers". There can be a long list of minor stuff, in this case economic arrangements of how to rebuild Ukraine or then dropping sanctions and so on, but there's no point in addressing secondary issues if there's no possible compromise on the deal breakers.

The deal breakers in this war for the Russians are concerning NATO and Crimea. There maybe someway to negotiate the other big issues, such as Russian speaking rights in Donbas and so, in a way that de-annexes these territories (such as the proposed referendums to be part of Ukraine, autonomous in Ukraine or independent) or then simply recognises the annexation (such as another referendum to join Russia that the international community recognises).

There is, for certain, no compromise Ukrainians and Westerners would be happy about, but the alternative is more war, more death, and potentially Ukraine losing anyways, which people will just blame Ukraine for not "fighting hard enough" but people should be far more unhappy about compared to a compromise now or at any point previous in the war.

Which is why the issue of the cost to Ukraine of more fighting is simply ignored in Western media, and even in this forum: so that if Ukraine comes out a big loser in all this, well that's what they wanted, what are you gonna do, all we did was give some of the weapons that they wanted, as any friend would do. — “boethius

To me other notions to clarify are those of “victory” and “loss”. They may have a meaning on the battlefield, and another in political and strategic terms, especially in the long run. Even if Ukraine manages to reintegrate all the occupied areas except Crimea and Donbas, this may count as a military loss for Ukraine and a military victory for Russia. But it could arguably count as a more significant political loss for Russia than for Ukraine, since the political price of this “special military operation” could still be too high for Russia to bear. Indeed, Russia wouldn’t make any substantial progress since 2014 wrt its ambitious objectives yet it would end up in much worse conditions: no regime change and no denazification (even the “neonazi" Azov fighters are being returned to Ukraine in prisoner exchanges), so the security threat would still be there if Ukraine joins NATO or gets security guarantees from the West, the military/intelligence failures looked of epic proportion, Russian political reputation among allies is sinking (CSTO alliance is not faring well, Russian annexations were acknowledged only by one of its members, Khazakstan is flirting with China), NATO will likely expand, sanctions are hampering Russian economy and technological upgrade (which is also essential for Russian military capacity), the American archenemy’s influence in Europe is getting stronger while Russian energetic integration with Europe is being severed, and Russian closer partnership with China (which will not replace the economic partnership with Europe in the short period) doesn’t look as a boost in hegemonic leadership, but a self-demotion in geopolitical rank and influence (Central Asia may definitely drift under the Chinese sphere of influence). And that is the opposite of the status recognition that Russia was striving for. From history, we know that Russian humiliating defeats have political repercussions and can lead to regime change/reforms. And this, in turn, could have unexpected favorable repercussions also on the Ukrainian territorial claims over Donbas and Crimea in the longer run.
Anyhow such geopolitical victory doesn’t depend just on Russian means, resolution, or escalation threats, but also on Western cohesion, resolution and vision in addressing the Russian security and economic challenge. This will also be an example also for other authoritarian regimes, like China. And an important premise to repair or rebuild more convenient relationships between the West and the Rest in the interest of everybody.

To recapitulate your intellectual failures so far: — neomac


emotional blackmailing, — neomac


That you perceive my pointing out the cost of your "endgame" for NATO, who you support, as emotional blackmail, is just demonstrating your cognitive dissonance about your own position.

Harming Russia by arming the Ukrainian army, comes at to Ukrainian welfare, and if harming Russia is the goal the cost to Ukraine could be far in excess of what would be in Ukrainian-self-interest (with or without us deceiving them about it, we would still be responsible for the outcome).

If you want to support harming the Russians, and not just a little bit but until they are no longer a threat to the West, then this requires a commensurate cost to the Ukrainians, a "moral dilemma" in your own words. Pointing out the cost is just reality, not "blackmail", and your perception that the reality is blackmail, is delusional.

slippery slopes, strawmans — neomac


What slippery slope, what straw man? You can't be more clear what your position actually is, and then you double down on it to be even more clear:

Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! — neomac


It's not outrageous, it's exactly what US / NATO are trying to do, and they are pretty clear about it.

Lot's of geopolitical "moves" require the sacrifice of some country or people's wellbeing for the "greater good". Talk to the Vietnamese, talk the Kurds, talk to our liberal "friends" in Iraq and Afghanistan, talk to the Libyans and Syrians (again, our "friends" there, not to mention just average person there trying to get by).

And, indeed, it is typical of any war that it is waged on land and among civilians that do not benefit from the outcome, either way, especially if their dead. Sacrificing here or there, this person or that, for the polities benefit and not their own, is an entirely normal process in any war.

The reason it's controversial in this war is because we're not even fighting it, Ukraine may lose anyways and even if they have some sort of "win" it may easily be at an unreasonably high cost. If it was all just to virtue signal without any coherent workable plan to actually "beat" Russia, then this Western attitude (of which the policy of the leadership entirely depends) has caused immense suffering for nothing.

You support the policy, the cost to Ukraine is immense, face the reality and explain how it's worth it so far, how the same or multiple times more cost would be likewise worth it, or even the entire destruction of Ukraine would be worth it if Russia is harmed enough.

For months the cost to Ukraine was simply denied, casualties super low, easily winning, Russian army incompetent and will collapse any day etc. so everyone in the West could just ignore the "moral dilemma" of what this policy is costing Ukraine.

Now that the "bill is coming due" people in the West want to just ignore it and if they see it a little bit: Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine chose this path!!

The truth of the situation is simply that nuclear blackmail works. The situation would need to be nearly inconceivably more extreme than what is happening in Ukraine for it not to be reasonable to submit to nuclear blackmail.

And, because nuclear blackmail works, US / NATO policy is not to "escalate" beyond a certain point: that point being Russia actually losing the war. — boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, you seem asking me to solve an equation whose form and variables are unknown. What does “lose” for Ukraine mean in quantifiable terms? What’s the likelihood of loss and win and how did you calculate it? What’s the time range you are considering? What’s the cost threshold that if exceeded will make the cost unreasonably high? What quantifiable parameters would make you consider a Western plan a “‘coherent workable’ plan to actually ‘beat’ Russia”?
Second, you yourself do not have provided any positive example of what such equation would look like in this or any other war in human history to show at least what you expect others to provide. You just hinted at cases (“Talk to the Vietnamese, talk the Kurds, talk to our liberal "friends" in Iraq and Afghanistan, talk to the Libyans and Syrians”) as examples of Western failures, suggesting an unscrutinised analogy with the Ukrainian case. So you yourself are not using the equation AT ALL to assess if Western attitude deserves to be supported or not in the Ukrainian case. Why don’t we try something different? You support Russian “legitimate grievances” that motivate Russian “special military operation”, the cost to Ukraine is immense, face the reality and explain how it's worth it so far, how the same or multiple times more cost would be likewise worth it, or even the entire destruction of Ukraine would be worth it, if Russian “legitimate grievances” enough acknowledged and demands are enough met. What would be an “unreasonably high cost” for Russia to have some sort of “win”?
Third, since your arguments against the Western attitude are in terms of number of casualties, defamatory/dismissive claims about Western (e.g. encouraging the Ukrainians to fight even though they know the Ukrainians will lose anyways or will completely destroyed, not fighting directly) and Ukrainian (e.g.“territory and national pride”) intentions/motivations, while acknowledging Russian “legitimate grievances” and unstoppable resolution (starting with the “nuclear blackmail”), arguing against such anti-Western policy arguments as I did in my exchanges with you and others is all there is to do on my side. Indeed, I’m very suspicious about your “accounting approach” because as far as I know, nobody and certainly not avg dudes like me and you can figure out a reliable plan to grant an optimal military victory and international security/economic/political fallout for this war as for any war in the entire human history (in the hindsight everything would likely appear to us questionable and suboptimal for one reason or another e.g. were the nuclear bombs over Japan really necessary? ). Strategic decisions by political administrations are constrained by all sorts of unpredictable/volatile factors. Political administrations have to creatively work their strategy out based on educated heuristics (guided by teams of experts), educated understanding of other relevant peers’ available options and preferences (so any move must be assess wrt other players’ available strategies, allies and enemies included) and longer terms goals (e.g. stretching over decades). So one way warring governments can topple one another is by overloading decision capacity with many pressing decision conditions at any level (e.g. economic, political, military) which will in turn increase the risk of committing fatal/cascading/cumulative mistakes to the advantage of the opponent. And notice that, given the Western support, the Ukrainian administration can rely on a likely wider and more effective pool of advisors and intelligence than the Russians. I also deeply doubt that at any given time the most valuable information available to decision makers (including how the strategy is performing so far) is available for public consumption by avg dudes like us for obvious security reasons. So avg dudes’ reasoning is twice frustrating because the avg dudes’ bounded rationality adds up to the bounded rationality of decision makers. And your peace deal recommendations suffer from such cognitive limits: the number of casualties doesn't literally say anything about what the best strategy in the long run is.
Besides I doubt that lives (as a biological condition) and well-being (as quantifiable material prosperity) are the unique or most politically relevant units by which one should measure costs and benefits of the war. Indeed the existential motivation behind major involved players in this conflict (like Ukraine, Russia, and the West) is more about shared/identitarian understanding, acknowledgement and possible achievement of what makes life worth living, so recognition (of self-determination for Ukrainians, and hegemonic status for Russia and the West). And this motivation can go deep into blood and bones of an entire society when people with their network of family, friendly, emotional and generational ties experience discrimination, humiliation, persecution, coercion, injury, rapes, torture, kill, threats, destruction and deprivation of their material and psychological means of subsistence or sense of safety because they hold a certain national identity instead of another. So Ukraine will likely keep fighting against the Russian aggression as a cancer which requires a hard, almost intolerable, treatment at least until it becomes intolerable.
Concerning the West, if Russia like a terrorist Islamist State (after all the religious pro-war propaganda against the satanist West is strong in Russia too) has proven means and will to wreck people and countries partnering with the West, destabilise Western economy (commodity blackmailing), politics (by supporting far-right movements in the West and soliciting the Rest to ally with Russia against the West), security (nuclear threats) in pursuit of such recognition the West can’t possibly let this happen without losing its own existential struggle for recognition. In other words, the West can’t possibly back up AGAINST powerful and aggressive authoritarian regimes that strive for recognition in OPPOSITION and at the expense of the West. So, since the clash of irreconcilable world views and (moral/legal/political) order is the deepest reason of this war, it’s irrational to now admit as possible the acknowledgment of Russian “legitimate grievances” just to avoid further bloodshed. For both “legitimate grievances” AND war bloodshed’s meaning ALONG WITH the value of the lives that have been already sacrificed to this war and the value of the lives that might be again sacrificed if Russia (or its emulators) were still in condition to start another war, threat or oppress sovereign countries and partners of the West still DEPENDS ON that clash of irreconcilable world views.
Four, I’m suspicious about causal claims such as “Western attitude (of which the policy of the leadership entirely depends) has caused immense suffering”, because they are ambiguously suggesting implicit and unscrutinised responsibility claims. Indeed the Western attitude is just one indirect causal factor of this War, among more direct causal factors which depend on Russian and Ukrainian attitude. My assumption is that for assessing responsibility, causal claims are not enough, one needs to assess agency and decision making process, along with beliefs and intentions against shared standards.

since you believe the following “Certainly we would want law to conform to our normative disposition, but until A. all people have the same values and B. little or no corruption exists, then that won't be the case” how can we possibly justify (in your terms) our position to others if they do not share our values or we can’t assure that little or no corruption exists? — neomac

We may not be able to, but we try nevertheless. For example, the Byzantine Empire would argue theology with the various caliphates they were in contact with. Neither side expected to convince / convert the other, but they would still make the attempt. Lot's of reasons for this: vis-a-vis the other party in the debate it can be simply a sign of respect to argue one's position, as it recognises the other party's arguments at least have the merit of being responded to, and it can also be for the purposes of just maintaining a polite dialogue with people you may need to deal with to avoid wars or do business etc. or then it could be for internal reasons of just impressing your own court with "proofs" that the heathens are wrong (or for all these purposes) or then just an obvious task of one's own theologians to prove the faith etc.

However, what’s a norm, what's normative, and what's legal are not the same thing. Certainly the goal of society is to harmonise all three, and for some things that happens to be the case, but you cannot deduce one from another. Simply because something is a norm does not mean it it normative nor legal. From my position in corporate management, people break the law literally all the time with no consequences. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, I asked you “how can we possibly justify (in your terms) our position to others if they do not share our values or we can’t assure that little or no corruption exists?”, the fact that people try things doesn’t mean that what they try to achieve can be possibly achieved. You can try to fly by flapping your arms yet that doesn’t mean it is physically possible for you to fly.
Second, I don’t remember you clarified anywhere the difference between norm, normative, and legal. To me “norm” and “normative” is like “law” and “legal”, so the distinction is more grammatical than semantic. While the distinction between “norm” and “law” is semantic, “laws” are a subclass of “norms”. Nothing more fancy about it. The point however is that I asked you about “how we can possibly justify” our position to others, while you are talking about the difference between norm, normative, and legal, and pointed to the fact that society’s goal is to harmonise all three. So you didn’t answer my question at all.
Third, to me, when we try to rationally justify our claims/actions to others, we are showing what consistent set of rules we expect people to follow or commit themselves to under some realistic conditions. So I don’t see how we can successfully justify anything to others if the set of rules and/or the understanding of what can be achieved is not shared. In the case of our exchange, since the disagreement persists, then we likely do not share relevant consistent set of rules and/or expectations about what can be realistically achieved (e.g. in the case of corruption or moral hazards). We do not even seem to agree on several relevant concepts (e.g. normative, security guarantee, straw man argument, justification), go figure.

what do you mean by “require recognising legitimate grievances of the Russians”? — neomac


This was discussed at length near the very beginning of this discussion, but, in short, if you want to negotiate a dispute with a party the first step is to recognise legitimate grievances of the other party (i.e. grievances that you yourself agree are reasonable and can do something about). Generally, everyone has some legitimate grievances in any situation, and the more complex the situation the more legitimate grievances everyone has, if you want to negotiate a settlement then the first step is to layout all the grievances of all the parties on the table and see if everyone can at least agree those are all legitimate points of view. The other essential starting element is the leverage each party has. Based on these two things, perhaps it is possible to come up with an arrangement acceptable to all the parties that is preferable to further conflict.

If you ignore someone's grievances then they are unlikely to accept anything you propose. Now, "legitimate" is prepended to "grievances" as maybe someone grievances are simply unreasonable (at least to you) and you can do nothing to solve them. “Legitimate grievance" is something you yourself agrees the counter party has a point about and an agreement would need to resolve, compensate or address in some way.

The position that Russia is 100% wrong about everything and has no legitimate points or grievances, is simply the position of refusing to negotiate and the choice of more warfare, which maybe justified, but the West and Zelensky like to present demands obviously Russia would never accept and just deny any problems on their own side. Like the very real Nazi's with significant influence, whether there is enough to justify invasion or not, it's clearly a legitimate grievance that the West should also have a problem with. Also expansion of NATO is also a legitimate grievance, considering NATO is quite clearly an anti-Russia organisation. Engaging in the self-justification of NATO expansion, just insisting that of course it's anti-Russian because Russia is the threat and countries want protection from Russia and getting into NATO and expanding NATO closer to Russia is not a threat to Russia because NATO's intentions are pure, people can do ... but, if you don't intend to negotiate. Obviously, my "anti-you" alliance will be perceived as a threat from your point of view. That Westerners can say we place these missiles closer to Russia but that's not like "a threat" to Russia is dumb if the goal is to negotiate with Russia.

A negotiated peace would be by definition a compromise. An uncompromising peace is what's called a surrender. So, listing uncompromising demands that Russia then obviously rejects, is a convoluted, bad faith way of saying there is no desire for negotiation, the surrender of Russia is preferable, for the purposes of propaganda. The problem is if you can't actually force Russia to surrender then this sort of language prolongs the war.

The problem the West has created by encouraging Zelensky to be uncompromising and make delusional statements while also insisting all negotiation must be with Zelensky, without the other powers involved at the table, is that basically any compromise on anything is now a Russian in Zelensky's framework.

Peace negotiations can be dealt with as quid-pro-quo without recognising any legitimate grievances, like a prisoner exchange, so why would this be required as a first step for a peace negotiation? — neomac


In order to engage in a quid pro quo, you need to recognise those are in fact legitimate grievances (such as return of prisoners) to then arrive at an agreement about it. Your own side negotiating needs to do this process at least internally (hear what others have to say, what they want, etc.). Whether something is recognised explicitly in public is a form of compensation, and is not a requirement as you say. However, anyone doing any actual diplomacy with Russia (with an intention of resolving the conflict) would need themselves to evaluate legitimate grievances that are reasonable to address in a settlement, and likewise anyone simply analysing the situation and trying to what sort of resolution the war is possible must do the same (to have any chance of proposing some practical insights).

Is it something that needs to be officially recorded anywhere? With what potential/likely legal and propaganda cost/benefit and strategic implications?
What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”? — neomac


As I explain above, the important recognition is internal to the negotiating parties (if they genuinely seek a resolution; if not you just say whatever you want). How these legitimate grievances are then recognised in an agreement can be through explicit recognition and compensation (but this is pretty rare in a settlement, as one of the benefits of a settlement is not recognising any wrong doing), so usually it's simply recognised in compensation and horse-trading, and between nations there can be entirely secret arrangements. — “boethius

I too welcome the possibility of an affordable compromise that takes into account all parties’ interests to some extent and spare further bloodshed, at some point. Yet I find very problematic talking about Russian “legitimate grievance” the way you do for the following reasons:

First, let’s notice that there is some mismatch between your notion of “justification” and your notion of “legitimacy” (as in “legitimate grievance”) because the former doesn’t require agreement (“Your actions maybe justified and a judge and everyone else disagrees”) while latter does (“‘Legitimate grievance’ is something you yourself agrees the counter party has a point about”). The mismatch seems confirmed also in your previous statement (“Like the very real Nazi's with significant influence, whether there is enough to justify invasion or not, it's clearly a legitimate grievance that the West should also have a problem with”). And this mismatch may explain your wording in the case of the prisoner exchange where prisoners to be returned are considered “legitimate grievance”. However, even if hearing what somebody wants is necessary for an effective quid-pro-quo, to my understanding that doesn’t equate to a recognition of a “legitimate grievance” as you unexpectedly suggest. To me, “legitimate grievance” is more commonly understood as “justified grievance”: i.e. “legitimate grievance” is a complaint about shared legal/moral/contractual rules that have been violated, not a request expressing what somebody wants or a complaint about one failed to get, or expected to get for whatever other reason, and which doesn’t need to be controversial (from your own example “if you were caught taking something and this led to a trial, ‘I wanted it’ is not a good justification in this context”). And clarifying what “justified grievances” are among parties can also help settle responsibility attributions.

Second, let’s also notice that talking about Russian “legitimate grievance” doesn’t even seem to follow conclusively from your own conspiracist speculations. Indeed, either Western agreement about Russian “legitimate concern” is honest, but then how come that all of a sudden there are no more hidden objectives or worst scenarios you can speculate about against the West? Or Western agreement is dishonest, so there are hidden objectives motivated by Western greed, lust for power, cynicism, phobias, but against whom this time? Ukraine, Russia, the West itself or else? In any case, it’s hard to understand how, given your own speculations, practically the West/NATO/US doesn’t give a shit about Ukrainian lives (it wants to sacrifice them), the Ukrainian president doesn’t give a shit about Ukrainian lives (he cares more about national pride and territory), Russia doesn’t give a shit about Ukrainian lives (they are killing them), and yet all the three can still manage to agree on the right peace deal that saves Ukrainian lives and welfare from greed, lust for power, cynicism, phobias, corruption of any administration involved in this war. If so, why should we believe that agreeing with Russian legitimate grievances and its demands as bad or worst than losing more Ukrainian lives? After peace, both Russia and Ukraine could still prosecute, repress, torture and kill a number of Ukrainian civilians accusing them of collaborationism which is equal to the number of killed Ukrainian civilians at any time during this war + 1.

Third, if Russian “legitimate grievance” (like NATO enlargement, denazification, Crimea) is taken as “justified grievance” to support Russian demands (otherwise what would be the point of talking about Russian “legitimate grievance”?), then their alleged “legitimacy” clashes with how I understand Western shared notions of politics [1], geopolitics (when great powers compete they do not ought to be fair or treat each other equally, what they primarily ought to do concerns more likely their national security, even if at the expense of other countries’ national security), international law (sovereignty, UN charter, treaties), history [2], morality (how can Russians aggress and kill their “brother” Ukrainians just for “territory and national pride”?). Unless, of course, Russian grievances and related demands are reframed entirely to make them compatible with Western shared notions, which implies that Russian deal-breaker demands won’t be accepted as such: e.g. concerning Crimea, there could be a UN supervised referendum about the autonomous or independent status of Crimea. Or alternatively there is a way to freeze the war, suspend and address matters of rights at a later time, in the hope that time could fix what can not be diplomatically fixed now.

Fourth, concerning the public/private nature of the Western acknowledgement of Russian grievances, if the recognition is public then there might be great reputational costs that one needs to be taken into account. Given the incompatibility I was talking about previously, I can’t figure out this situation other than a zero-sum-game i.e. more legitimacy for the West than less legitimacy for Russia, and vice versa. So by addressing Russian requests the way I suggested above, without delegitimising the West this could be a serious problem for Russia. On the other side, if that acknowledgement remains private matter, the problem is that verba volant, scripta manent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verba_volant,_scripta_manent) and the situation is analogous to the alleged promise from the US administration to the Soviet Union administration to never expand a single inch east. If that promise actually occurred as a private agreement, it allows plausible (if not legitimate) deniability. If it didn’t occur, then Russia can again invent its own alternative truth about Western recognition of its legitimate grievances without any such private recognition from the West actually happening. So the only evidence that has a stronger chance to pierce people’s mind in favour of Russia is a public recognition of Russian legitimate grievance as an admission of Western/Ukrainian culpability or weakness. After all how serious can be taken a recognition of Russian legitimate grievances if it’s just matter of responsible people coping with the tantrums of a delusional dictator with a bunch of “white lies" behind doors? Conclusion: if Putin is de facto striving for international status and recognition (in line with changing the World Order with his Chinese ally), then he must likely pursue public recognition of his “legitimate grievances”.

[1]
“During Ukraine's post-Soviet history, the far-right has remained on the political periphery and been largely excluded from national politics since independence in 1991.[2][3] Unlike most Eastern European countries which saw far-right groups become permanent fixtures in their countries' politics during the decline and fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the national electoral support for far-right parties in Ukraine only rarely exceeded 3% of the popular vote.[4] Far-right parties usually enjoyed just a few wins in single-mandate districts, and no far right candidate for president has ever secured more than 5 percent of the popular vote in an election.[4] Only once in the 1994–2014 period was a radical right-wing party elected to the parliament as an independent organization within the proportional part of the voting: Svoboda in 2012.[4] Since then even at the height of nationalist sentiment during and after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russo-Ukrainian War far-right parties have failed to gain enough votes to attain political representation.[4] The far-right was heavily represented among the pro-Russian separatists with several past or current leaders of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk linked to various neo-Nazi, white supremacists and ultra nationalists groups. The importance of the far-right on both sides of the conflict declined over time.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics_in_Ukraine

[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_nationalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_imperialism#Internal_colonization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Late_1930s_and_wartime:_Russian_comes_to_the_fore

I've accused you of moving the goalposts of you arguments around rather than just arguing what you actually believe (that the endgame is to "inflict enduring damage on Russia", which causes "collateral damage" in pursuit of that goal, that causes a moral dilemma).
I have argued the justifications you present are insufficient, such as a UN general assembly vote being some sort of "normative / legal justification", or, even if it was (which it isn't), then totally incompatible with supporting the US despite the US ignoring UN generally assembly votes all the time. More importantly for the actual debate we're having, the “normative / legal" argument isn't your actual justification but rather supporting the West, and US hegemony in particular, generally speaking. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, legally speaking, the UN resolution is a legal justification for national policies, it has legal consequences, it’s not just a demoscopic survey. If the UN resolution established that Russian is illegal, and a government takes countermeasures against Russia because, among others, it violated international law, then the UN resolution is taken as a legal justification of such measures. Indeed what would be the point of having a General Assembly resolution if it had zero effects on national policies? Evidently, states that are not attacked by Russia nor suffering violations of bilateral agreements by Russia, still need a plausible reason to issue policies against Russian aggression in support of legitimate Ukrainians’ solicitations. The UN resolution does the job. As we said, and you agreed on it, if international law resolutions are not binding or coercing, yet they can succeed in coordinating the behavior among states. And that is what happened.
Anyway, second point and most importantly, that’s an irrelevant point wrt what I was originally arguing, which is about strategy and threat perception (that’s why I accused you of shifting polemic target from strategy to legal). Strategy for geopolitical agents is about threat perception and response to counter actual/potential threat. One can then add rational constraints on threat perception and response to deepen the analysis. Now, strategically speaking, Russia is clearly an actual threat to the West: it has means to threat the West, it has motives to threat the West, it acted against Western interests in many significant ways, and its propaganda is expressly and bitterly against the West and West-led World Order. The case of the UN resolution corroborates this point: since that resolution expresses the Western wide condemnation of Russian aggression, discounting or discrediting such resolution by Russia signals intentional opposition to Western will and defiant delegitimisation of the Western World Order (https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-moscow-23bb0ba759d877c4525082e921544910).
Third, you keep framing your objections by assuming a notion of “justification” which I neither am committed to nor I find conceptually intelligible. Indeed, you yourself are incapable of offering anything that one can positively consider as a “justification” in this war. You can just shift the burden of proof on your opponent and then object how they fail based on your arbitrary conjectures. Not to mention your tendency to repeatedly misunderstand and caricature your opponent’s views which make it hard to converge on anything relevant to the topic. Said that, in my exchanges with your and others, I offered arguments to clarify my understanding of Western decision makers and arguments to clarify my political support to them. To me an argument can broadly count as “justification” if it’s validly inferred from certain shared premises (“shared” by those who understand them and/or find them empirically plausible in a similar way). So if I and you share premises and inference rules we MUST converge. If we don’t, then either it’s a limited and recoverable intellectual failure (which we should be able to fix in a few iterations affordable to avg dudes as we are) or you are simply unintelligible to me. Justifications in support of a certain policy may depend on different domain-specific premises (moral, legal, political, strategic, etc.) and among these arguments there might be some significant convergence in their conclusions. I find Western policies justified based on different but converging domain-specific assumptions which I tried to expose to you and other opponents. So until you prove you share enough facts, concepts and understanding of related arguments the way I do, it’s hard for you to sound intellectually compelling to me.

There are four central issues to what you actually believe.

1. First being the justification of US hegemony in the geopolitical struggle with Russia, but more importantly China. Now, like yourself, I prefer to live in the West than in China or Russia, however, this is equatable with seeking hegemonic control / influence / containment of China and its neighbours. My approach would be a "lead by example" policy and not picking fights that get hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed and injured and destroying half or more of the Ukrainian economy, in seeking to harm Russia, which benefits China so seems to me entirely counter productive on the geopolitical hegemonic "chess game" in any case.

2. Bringing to the second point which is this policy really does advance US hegemony and Western leadership of the whole world. — “boethius

Not sure what you mean by “lead by example” policy. Could you explain by means of historical “lead by example” cases?
Anyways, it seems you are repeating the same point exposed earlier. Briefly, the US should accept all Russian deal-breaker demands in return for peace in Ukraine, and get ready for China. OK let’s say the US does what you recommend. What if China attacks Taiwan, encouraged by Western recoil from the human and material costs of the war? What would the US be justified to do then? Fighting directly against China? Or start a “proxy war” like in Ukraine? Wouldn’t the US meddling in China’s sphere of influence risk any nuclear war escalation then? Wouldn’t be Taiwanese people pawns of American hegemony? Or worst American lobbies? Does the US have greater chance to win against China than to win against Russia? If Russia won’t win but it won’t lose in Ukraine, wouldn’t it be the same for China in Taiwan? What would the UN Security Council’s resolution likely be then?
BTW what do you think Russia will do then, support China or the US or remain neutral? Or what if then Russia attacks again Ukraine (or Moldova) while the US is at war with China? After all Russia didn’t keep its promises to Ukraine already once (see Budapest Memorandum), not to mention that recognising Ukrainian independency in 1992 or so didn’t mean shit to Russia either, and that Putin does not consider Ukraine a separate nation from Russia.

3. And lastly, that the sacrifice of Ukraine to advance this policy is morally justified. At least the US was fighting in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and there's at least honour to that and suffering the consequences of the policy. It is impossible to ignore the fact that when parties are armed to do the fighting for us, that this creates an intense moral hazard, moreover when any criticism of the leadership and war is banned in the country, we wholeheartedly condone and promote propaganda for "morale" purposes and winning the "information war" with Russia (i.e. we cannot even say there's some sort of informed consent) and (make matter morally worse) we produce a lot of the propaganda ourselves (encouraging belief that the side we need to fight can "win" when our military and civilian leadership may be fully aware that is very unlikely) leading to decisions on false pretences, and, also important, if pouring money and arms into the country is de facto bribing the leadership of that country who benefit immensely in both legal and illegal ways from all this money and arms pouring in.
4. That anytime the goal posts change to "Ukrainian sovereignty!" then why aren't Western armies in Ukraine defending this alleged priority?

These are not "accusations" but just what your position actually entails. If harming Russia is the objective, and Ukrainians are doing the fighting, and the West is arming and bankrolling and "advising", then it simply goes with that position that it's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that this setup will result in Ukrainians fighting beyond their own self interest (which I have zero problem recognising involves some fighting).

In other words, we may have already (I would definitely argue this), and if not, may very well in the future, sacrifice Ukrainian welfare to pursue the West's priority in this situation, which is, to boil it down, "not letting Putin get away with it!”. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, you are offering a list of conjectures whose plausibility rests only on what you claim conceivable. Without evidence there is no way to assess if your conjectures are actually true or even likely nor how relevant they are wrt what is at stake.
Second, it seems you can’t imagine other than worst scenarios (especially discrediting the West) while ignoring factors (i.e. how risky and costly abusive behavior can be, or how beneficial honest cooperation an be) that hedge against such scenarios.
Third, the limitations of liberties is normal and legitimate praxis during war time even for any Western democracy. Indeed, even if the limitations of liberties wouldn’t preventively reduce the risk of abuses, yet reviewing mistakes and responsibility can be done afterwards once the emergency is over. Most importantly, acknowledging such moral hazard would not be enough to give up on such limitations. Were this the case any democracy would be highly vulnerable to any authoritarian regime that does not need to worry about morality, people’s welfare and accountability. In other words, in order to avoid a moral hazard (Westerns exploiting Ukrainians), you are submitting to a greater moral hazard by letting Russians re-play the same game (including the nuclear blackmail because if it worked once, it could work again) once they have recovered from this war, which will certainly be facilitated by an immediate pro-Russian peace deal. Worst then this, your argument severely undermines Western democracies’ security concerns in favor of any authoritarian competitors (China included) because literally anybody can always conjecture worst scenarios like escalation to MAD, exploitation by greedy lobbies, greater numbers of deaths, etc. that would make any military opposition and security countermeasures worth it. That’s the fallacious slippery slope I was talking about.
Fifth, your recommendations to Western decision makers are grounded on de facto irrational expectations because they totally ignore or underestimate something that decision makers of any country in the whole known human history have to realistically deal with as top priority, namely security concerns, instead of taking into account what realistic conditions and to what extent they can be harmonised with people’s welfare.

Does “you cannot justify to others” mean that my claims are not justified until I can prove that everybody on earth agrees with me?! — neomac


“Justification” has a social function definition of justifying to others. If a judge asks for your "justification" for some actions, the request is to justify to the judge not yourself. When a justification is only to oneself, we say "self justification" to clarify that no one else is intended to be convinced by the argument.

For example, if you were caught taking something and this led to a trial, "I wanted it" is not a good justification in this context; this self-justification goes without saying and not the issue at trial (no harm in mentioning it, obviously you took the thing because you wanted it) so if you started your explanation with "well I wanted it" unlikely anyone would disagree, but a adequate justification in this context would be some right to the thing (there was a deal for example, that the counter party is now denying) or then some particular circumstance (some emergency, for example, or then you actually thought it was lost and took it to "return it" to the owner etc.).

That's just what the word justification means.

Of course, one can propose nothing is justified, there is no justice, all moral language is for the purposes of rationalising and manipulation. But, even in this position, the word "justification" still refers to the attempt to convince others your actions are just. (only everyone, perhaps even yourself, is always deceived about it, there is no "actual" justification for anything, life has no purpose other than pursuing your inclinations and desires, which are accidental to your genes and upbringing and themselves not justified either, just nothing else to do).

Anyways, essentially no one, certainly not myself, argues that a position is justified only after a everyone agrees, which creates immediately the problem of why anyone would believe it's true if it's not true until everyone believes it's true. The "truth" (or then meaninglessness of the issue) of a justification is independent of anyone's belief about it. Your actions maybe justified and a judge and everyone else disagrees. Indeed, your actions maybe justified and you yourself are convinced it was actually wrong later.

The point of getting into the meaning of justification, is that what people propose as their justification maybe a lie. So, it is entirely reasonable to speculate as the real motivations behind what people do. Now, the actual (secret in this case) justification maybe true and following from that the lies about it are also justified, or then maybe both are not-justified. Or, the more confusing situation but entirely possible, is one uses a true justification to advance a hidden objective that is similar to but not actually the same or even compatible with the true justification.

For example, I maybe entirely justified in helping a traveller in distress, but if my true intentions are to simply gain this travellers trust for the purposes of stealing from them, then my actions up to that point only appear entirely justified but it is in actuality part of a deception. So, a true justification can also be a lie, that it only even possibly revealed in the future. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, let’s remind that you claimed of me “so you support Western policies regardless of justification” and you also claimed “‘justification’ still refers to the attempt to convince others your actions are just”. In all my posts (not only with you) I offered moral, legal, and strategic reasons to back up my claims about the Western support of Ukraine and my picking side, if that doesn’t count to you as an attempt to convince others my claims are “just” in the sense of “justified” or grounded “some emergency” (e.g. the Russian security threat to the West) or “some right” (e.g. supporting Ukrainian right to self-defence) then I don’t know what is. In other words your accusation against me is false according to your own understanding of “justification to others”.
Second, you may claim I didn’t succeed to convince you. But I don’t see how this constitute a rational challenge even within your conceptual framework: indeed you believe that one can be justified independently from others agreeing with him. So I can be justified even if you disagree with me.
Third, concerning you, since you also believe that even “true justification” can still be a lie, and that even lie can still be “justified”, you seem up for an endless speculative regress. No wonder if you prefer doing something entirely different: indeed it’s “entirely reasonable” (why “entirely reasonable”? It could also be “entirely paranoid”!) for you to speculate about hidden objectives as defamatory as possible (only concerning the West/US of course, because Russia has no hidden objectives, no evil lobbies, no fighting to the last Caucasians and Asians as “cannon fodder” for the holy invincible Rus’ warrior race, no worst scenarios for Ukrainians after surrendering to Russian demands you feel like speculating about, just pure and legitimate intentions from Russia right?) regardless of truth/falsity of any justification, to convince others that you do not have hidden objectives and your online anonymous recommendations are so powerful that can actually save lives, you yourself are demonstrating exactly how your “moral language is for the purposes of rationalising and manipulation”.

You're really now trying to say you're just engaging in objective analysis without a horse in the race? — “boethius

It's "your endgame" because you're the one proposing it — “boethius

You are "siding with the West" and you propose an “endgame” that is sufficient for the West (The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power) ... so i.e. an endgame you support. — “boethius

That’s my claim: "My understanding how the chess game is played by a couple of players is one thing, my siding with any of them is another.” In other words, one thing is how I understand (not “propose”) the geopolitical endgame of geopolitical agents NATO/US/WEST, another is if I find it desirable and why. So by talking about “my endgame” is misleading because I’m not a geopolitical agent, I’m not West/NATO/US, I’m not the player. Checkmate the opponent is the expected endgame of those who play chess not of the audience or supporters watching the game.
Talking about my understanding and my reasons to prefer one side over the other is neither “proposing” nor “recommending” anything, that’s your language and your aim, which you shouldn’t project on to me. Indeed, I find it twice delusional: as an avg dude, I’m far from assuming to know better or enough how to play the game to “propose” or “recommend” anything to anybody about geopolitical issues, or to have any significant impact on this war directly or indirectly through my posts here.

You then literally just say the exact thing I just says, just you're issue is my "framing".

Again you are conveniently framing the issue as it suits your narrative. Ukrainian lives (namely casualties) are not “The instrument to ‘inflict as much as enduring damage as possible to Russian power’” but the collateral damage of Ukrainian decisions to fight back Russian aggression, direct damage inflicted by Russian decisions on Ukrainians, and indirect collateral damage of Western decisions to support Ukrainians in fighting back Russian aggression. As collateral damage is Ukrainian lives, this poses a moral dilemma of course. — neomac

Collateral damage to Ukrainian lives would make sense if NATO was fighting with Russia in Ukrainian territory, then Ukrainian lives lost would be unfortunate collateral damage.
That's not the case, NATO isn't fighting. — “boethius

Talking about Ukrainians casualties as “collateral damage” was an objection to your picturing Ukrainians casualties as “instrumental to” fighting Russia. What’s evident is that Ukrainians casualties (among soldiers and civilians) are not instrumental to the West, but to Russia. It’s Russia which kills Ukrainian soldiers and civilians to damage Ukrainian manpower and moral to fight, not the West. Whatever “evil” second end you attribute to the West still needs to be demonstrated.

Why is there a moral dilemma? Because achieving the policy objective you set (and US / NATO doesn't have much problem admitting to) of inflicting enduring damage on the Russian military is not the same objective as Ukrainian welfare, which I have zero problem saying can involve some fighting (the first weeks of fighting is certainly preferable to total capitulation and humiliation, but it's after demonstrating your honour on the international stage, is the optimum time to sue for peace and accept a compromise as a smaller nation) but (regardless of when peace is sought) fighting for the welfare of Ukrainians is a much more constrained criteria than fighting to harm the Russians. Saying "they both want to fight the Russians so they both want the same thing" is simply totally wrong: "fighting the Russian insofar as it's in the interest of Ukrainians" is a very different objective than "fighting the Russians insofar as it damages the Russians".
This is why "the US / NATO fighting to the last Ukrainian" has been a focal point of debate since the beginning of the war, because, obviously, if the goal is simply to maximise damage to Russia then what follows from that would be "fighting to the last Ukrainian". It's a way of saying the objectives of Ukraine and US / NATO are not the same, which US / NATO don't really have a problem saying.
For example, saying Putin and Russia must "pay a cost" for breaking the international "rules based order" is exact same idea, maybe with slight "narrative framing" differences. It is not saying "we must ensure Ukrainian welfare is the top priority, which may require compromise with Russia”, but it clearly means the priority is damaging Russia so the war is costly, which means pouring arms into Ukraine as they are doing the fighting, which means Ukrainians are the instrument of this policy, not the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are all who benefit from the "international rules based order" and if the entirety of Ukraine is sacrificed for this policy then "mission accomplished”. — “boethius

I argued against this already in previous posts, so I’ll expand a bit more. From the plausible assumption that separate geopolitical agents have different endgames, you can conjecture a case of intentional exploitation by the West of the Ukrainians ("the US / NATO fighting to the last Ukrainian”, “pouring arms into Ukraine as they are doing the fighting, which means Ukrainians are the instrument of this policy, not the beneficiaries”). I get it, this possibility is consistent with that single plausible assumption. But there are other plausible assumptions to consider: a part from missing a conceptual point about the notion of “sovereignty” which I’ll discuss later, your conjecture doesn’t take into account what relevant factors can likely and significantly constrain such possibility.
On one side, the conjecture of the Ukrainian exploitation by a greater power is not historically implausible, indeed that’s arguably what Russian empire and Soviet Union actually did. And that’s arguably the historical reason why Ukrainians (like Stepan Bandera) preferred to collaborate with the Nazis to fight Soviet Union (Nazis didn’t oppress, murder and exploit Ukrainians as the Soviet Union did), and to join now the Western sphere of influence more than Russian sphere of influence. The Ukrainians have already decided long ago that the advancement of their welfare & lives is better served outside the Russian sphere of influence and they are ready to fight for that and sacrifice lives as they fought and sacrificed lives in the past. Add to that the potential benefits of Westernization as experienced by other Eastern European countries previously under Soviet Union sphere of influence that joined EU/NATO (like their neighbour Poland) unlike other Eastern European countries which remained under Russian sphere of influence (like their neighbour Belarus).
On the other side it’s not reasonable to expect that Westerners military support to Ukraine is just about Russian military defeat and smearing campaign against Russia to deflect from Western hypocrisy and exploitation. As I said elsewhere, power is not grounded only on brute force and deception but also on consensus, reputation, cooperation, partnership wrt competitors, so it’s on those grounds too that the West is competing against Russia. And that’s how the West managed to appeal to Eastern European countries previously under Soviet Union sphere of influence. Given the Ukrainian willingness to join the Western sphere of influence and the Ukrainian strategic importance to the West, there is significant room for a consensual, mutually beneficial and long term systemic political, economic, security integration. So this war can clearly become a crucial testbed for building the mutual trust between West and Ukraine amenable to greater cooperation. And Westerners can’t reasonably build trust through broad and crass exploitation of Ukrainians as “cannon fodder”, nor reap the benefits of Russian military humiliation by letting Ukrainians lose (especially after the discrediting conclusion of the American war in Afghanistan and China’s incumbent military threat). BTW these circumstances are very different from the ones surrounding the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. That’s why to me the analogy to those cases to discredit the West or the US doesn’t hold in a relevant sense.
Said that, real life is rarely linear and predictable as one could argue under plausible assumptions, in any case the impression from the news I read so far is that the West is more hesitant (for certain reasons, including not provoking Russia to actually escalate to the worst scenarios despite the escalatory threats) about providing military support to Ukrainians than the Ukrainians are about fighting with whatever they get from the West and despite the risks of escalation (BTW, interestingly, even Poland and Baltic states do not seem to worry too much over possible Russian escalations, despite being the closest targets to Russia). It has never been the case that Ukrainians didn’t want to fight, and the West forced them to fight against their will. On the contrary there are evidences that show Ukrainians pressuring Westerners to increase their military support (more weapons now) or even change the nature of engagement (no flight zone, Russia attacked a NATO country, etc.) or making bold declarations about their possible victory (namely getting back all occupied/annexed territories, including Crimea and Donbas) despite Western hesitancy or lack of commitment or vagueness about this. There are even plausible evidences of Ukrainian actions within Russian territory (e.g. the killing of Dugin’s daughter) not supported by Westerners and therefore arguably exploitative of Western trust by the Ukrainians.
And notice that I’m not conflating “Ukrainians fighting against their will” with “Ukrainians fighting against their interest”. But while I find the latter case open for debate way more than the former, at the same time I find a view that identifies Ukrainians’ interest independently or even in open conflict with what Ukrainians actually want more hardly defensible (the way you downplayed their views as in “territory and national pride” exemplifies such kind of patronising attitude). What’s Ukrainian best interest will likely remain controversial, one way or the other. And inability to fix such controversy in a principled way is something we must learn to live with.

Sure, but as you yourself admit there's a "moral dilemma" in the Western support of Ukraine for the purposes of harming the Russians, as it is not the same thing as supporting Ukrainian welfare.

So, if Ukrainian welfare is sacrificed for a goal that is not Ukrainian welfare, the moral responsibility for our policies cannot just be then shifted to the Ukrainian leadership and "Ukrainian people" (insofar as we equate them with Ukrainian leadership), we are still responsible for our own policies and what we are trying to achieve. Just because you want to kill someone doesn't mean I am justified in giving you the weapon to do it. Even if you were justified in your desire to kill (say self defence) and I was justified in helping you do that, even then it does not justify any form of lethal support. As Isaac pointed out, self defence vis-a-vis your neighbour doesn't justify nuking the whole city. As the provider of lethal support, I'd still be responsible for the outcome and how my actions contributed to the outcome.

Whenever the cost to Ukraine of the Western policy is pointed out, essentially all the supporters of the policy here and elsewhere just throw their hands up and say “Ukrainians want to fight!" and seem to believe that completely unburdens them of the consequences of the policy.

But as you say yourself, there's a "moral dilemma". If you want to support this policy and argue in good faith, then solve the moral dilemma, rather than move the goal posts around for your own arguments so much that the "game" your playing is now entirely made of goal posts. We're literally walking on goal posts. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, let’s notice that you didn’t offer any positive example or criteria to clarify what form of lethal support are justified to you.
Second, and more importantly, there is a huge inconvenience with moral judgements: while legal judgments can count on certain conditions that to some extent enforce epistemic convergence among a plurality of subjects with potentially conflicting interests, that’s not the case with moral judgements. A legal system has a unique and codified body of detailed norms, procedures, ways of appealing to them followed by experts that ensure the judgement comes to an end and is applied to actual cases of legal infraction denounced with a minimum of pertinent evidence in a codified format. Moral judgement is hardly the result of a moral system analogous to the legal system: indeed it’s an inalienable task that anybody can engage in at any time, with different sets of principles that can be applied differently by different individuals in different circumstances (you yourself admit the possibility of moral agents with different values), evidences can be volatile or easily replaced by unconstrained hypotheticals (e.g. in the case of moral hazards or conflict of interests), and remains open for debate. This inconvenience impacts also the issue of “taking responsibility” for certain policies. Indeed, the difficulty of ensuring epistemic convergence in the moral domain spurs controversies also on moral responsibility attributions.
This predicament shows the importance of the international legal system as a reference: as long as a state is considered “sovereign” responsibility for its policies can not be shifted to a superior authority or shared with allies or international aid (no matter what the power relations with other countries is). So even if the West does knowingly and intentionally provide useful military aid to Ukraine to fight against Russia for whatever second end, Ukrainian decision to fight against Russia thanks to the Western military aid and accountability for collateral damages, is entirely on Ukraine as a sovereign state. So no other government than the Ukrainian one is expected to not only commit to but also make full sense of the imperative “we must ensure Ukrainian welfare is the top priority, which may require compromise with Russia” from the Ukrainian perspective.
The legal notion of “sovereignty” offers also a clear understanding of who is the victim and who is the aggressor in this war. No Russian security concerns can obscure the fact that Russia is violating the territorial integrity of a widely acknowledged sovereign state (by Russia too) and forcing a revision of international relations built around such acknowledgement. Russia didn’t suffer any actual/imminent aggression from Ukraine to justify this war against Ukraine and annexation of Ukrainian territories. The Ukrainian resistance is morally defensible as a right to self-defence. So ZERO legal (and moral) legitimacy for Russia, as confirmed by the UN resolutions.
Also political regimes help understand political agency and responsibility attribution. In Western democracies the decision process is more distributed over people and time than in authoritarian regimes, and it relies on accountability conditions harder to manipulate by any central government than in autocracies, that’s why it’s harder to pin down the responsibilities of NATO enlargement threat on Biden than Putin’s reactions to such threat. Even if you believe that the American lobbies are so powerful that can rig the game, the problem is that policies in support of Ukraine and against Russia (sanctions and military aid) are shared by many Western countries each of them with their powerful lobbies and their military/intelligence expertise , so it’s unlikely that such policies would be adopted by these Western countries if such policies didn’t make sense to them. And it’s also unlikely that Ukrainian politicians, intelligence and diplomacy significantly failed to have a good grasp of Western understanding of this war, interest in this war and support to Ukraine in all these months.
You can still spin your conspiracy bias to speculate about evil and impunity everywhere among Western political elites and lobbies, then my objection still remains, national and international competition among political elites and lobbies plus unintended consequences can still create favourable conditions for Ukrainian welfare. And if you want to speculate against that too, I’ll leave it at that, yet I do wonder what on earth are you hoping to achieve against such all mighty forces.

Concerning the issue of “solving the moral dilemma”, what do you mean by it? Decision makers may be honestly facing some moral dilemma, favour one horn of the dilemma for certain reasons (however controversial!), act accordingly, and yet be plagued with doubts for the rest of their lives. What would you say in this case? Was the moral dilemma solved or not? As long as moral choices involve uncertainty and strategic choices indeed involve uncertainties one has to live with moral dilemmas and the controversies they spur (e.g. consider nuclear bombing Japan in WW2 as a moral dilemma, was it worth it? What could we say then? What could we say now?).

No where in this is Ukrainian welfare or Ukraine "winning" requirement in your endgame, whatever definition of that they are using today, under consideration. — “boethius

First, it’s not “my” endgame. Making it personal would be misleading even if there was no intellectual dishonesty involved, because it may confuse my understanding of certain geopolitical dynamics with my taking position toward them. These are 2 distinct things. My understanding how the chess game is played by a couple of players is one thing, my siding with any of them is another.
Second, of course we can not rationally expect that the ultimate endgame for a geopolitical subject X concerns the security of a separate geopolitical subject Y. The ultimate endgame for X concerns the security of X. No matter who is X and Y. So if it’s the welfare of Ukraine that needs to be ultimately secured, that’s the task of Ukraine as geopolitical agent, not of other geopolitical agents like West/NATO/US. And the other way around. Yet the conditions may be such that not only there is enough motivation for cooperation between separate geopolitical agents in the pursuit of their respective security interests, but it’s even possible that their respective security interests may eventually merge: e.g. as of now not only fighting Russia is in the interest of both Ukraine and the West (e.g. EU/NATO), but maybe in the future Ukraine will be part of the West (e.g. EU/NATO). All this is perfectly compatible with the West “feeling concerned” about Ukrainians’ welfare or taking Ukraine “winning" as instrumental to its ultimate endgame, more likely so, if the long term goal is to have Ukraine integrated within Western sphere of influence (e.g. NATO/EU). The point is the West can not be reasonably expected to be as concerned about Ukrainians’ welfare as Ukraine.
Third, I’m arguing that Western support to Ukraine is strategically and morally defensible in theory, how strategic and moral reasons are playing on the ground is however hard to assess for short term goals and much harder for longer term goals (like for the next decades).

Ukraine can both lose, and in the process suffer extreme harms, and your end game can still be accomplished if enough damage is inflicted on Russia.
The instrument to "inflict as much as enduring damage as possible to Russian power" is Ukrainian lives.
In the world of "practical rationality" there is no military achievement in this context possible without sacrificing Ukrainian lives. — boethius

Again you are conveniently framing the issue as it suits your narrative. Ukrainian lives (namely casualties) are not “The instrument to ‘inflict as much as enduring damage as possible to Russian power’” but the collateral damage of Ukrainian decisions to fight back Russian aggression, direct damage inflicted by Russian decisions on Ukrainians, and indirect collateral damage of Western decisions to support Ukrainians in fighting back Russian aggression. As collateral damage is Ukrainian lives, this poses a moral dilemma of course.

So, if you want to maximise your military objective, which is harming the Russians in your "endgame", then that requires maximising the sacrifice of Ukraine. Even when in a clearly losing position and even when suffering far higher kill-ratios than the Russians and civilian and economic damage etc. fighting on another day will still inflict another day of damage to the Russians. — boethius

I didn’t focus on military goals. I talked about Russian power of threatening Western security. So the sacrifice of Ukrainians can be contained (in the present and in the future) by disrupting whatever relevant factor (not only the military one) that fuels the Russian war machine. If you reason through hypotheticals I can counter with hypotheticals. After all the geopolitical game admits best and worst scenarios and all in between, so the debate should focus more over their likelihood. The fact that you obsess over conjecturing worst scenarios and build fallacious and conspirational arguments around them more than providing evidence in their support or internal inconsistencies in your opponents views about them is proof of your rationally self-defeating militant mindset.

Predictably, you now try to move the goal posts to NATO and Ukraine, but again the harms to Ukraine in such a process can still be essentially total. Ukraine could be totally destroyed, totally sacrificed, in such a project and if the goal to inflict enough damage on Russia is achieved then perhaps Russia is indeed no longer a threat to Ukraine. However, if in the process "Ukraine", however you want to define it, is totally sacrificed and destroyed, clearly Ukrainian welfare has not been protected. — boethius

“Moving goal posts” is your brainwashing mantra likely reinforced by your arbitrary assumption that it’s on you to set what counts as “goal post”. If one wants to understand the reasons of Western involvement in Ukraine one has to understand things from Western perspective. If one wants to understand the reasons of Ukrainians fighting Russians one has to understand things from Ukrainian perspective. By this way one can see why they can cooperate as they actually do and how this cooperation is not occasional but with shared long term goals of integration, which your conjectures totally fails to consider. As much as they fail to consider that Ukrainians have agency, concern for their lives and welfare (expectedly way more than you and Putin possibly do), can understand strategic and moral stakes for them and the Westerners, and that the cooperation implies costs/risks/limits. One can’t reasonably expect Ukraine to willingly (or coercively?) sacrifice its people just to advance Western goals as pro-Russian propaganda you are lining with suggests, or just for “territory and national pride” (as you framed Ukrainians’ position) which is more likely true for powers like Russia trying to restore their sphere of influence outside their borders through wars and atrocities than for their victims which are trying to survive such wars and atrocities.
In any case your conjectures are not proof of what is actually nor likely happening nor what is rationally expected to happen. Letting your conjecture always drift toward the worst scenario (like in a slippery slow) is how you desperately try to mess with your opponents’ psychology as you do with escalation to MAD (which will destroy the world, maybe except the evil US right?) and induce some irrational fear, or phobia, and again fear mongering is also classic textbook strategy of the worst propaganda.

You can not serve 2 masters: you will love the one and hate the other. Clearly, you serve US interests in this conversation. — boethius

Let’s examin the density of your intellectual squalor as illustrated by this arbitrary accusation.
First, I expressed my preferences and the reasons of my siding with the Western support to Ukraine in previous posts, so there was no need for you to invent such pathetic slogans about my preferences (BTW why love one and hate the other? I could be averse to both powers yet hate Russian hegemony way more than the American one).
Second, I’m arguing that Western support of Ukraine is both strategically and morally defensible (actually more than the opposite view for avg Westerners) so your attack ad hominem is irrelevant wrt such arguments. Besides it’s likely fallacious given that you didn’t offer rationally compelling arguments ad rem, so you are shifting goal posts to discrediting me personally with biased accusations.
Third, such biased attack ad hominem can be as easily and fairly retorted against you. You can not serve 2 masters: you will love the one and hate the other. Clearly, you serve Russian interests in this conversation. The difference is that Ukrainians fighting Russia would hold views more likely in line with my views than yours. That’s why when you and Putin blame the West for Ukrainian lives doesn’t mean that you and Putin care for them more than the Westerners, actually it can likely be the opposite. In your twisted logic and hypocrisy, you might despise the Ukrainians for sacrificing their lives for the US, and secretly enjoy the atrocities they are suffering as a just punishment for not siding with the master you love and siding with master you hate.

Which leads to plenty of interesting debate. For example, I have serious doubts about your geopolitical theory considering China is the much larger hegemonic competitor to the US. — boethius

Your claims lead to plenty of more interesting debate to me. For example:

• Can you show better how your accusation follows from your notion of “justification”?
• Does “you cannot justify to others” mean that my claims are not justified until I can prove that everybody on earth agrees with me?!
• since you believe the following “Certainly we would want law to conform to our normative disposition, but until A. all people have the same values and B. little or no corruption exists, then that won't be the case” how can we possibly justify (in your terms) our position to others if they do not share our values or we can’t assure that little or no corruption exists?
• what do you mean by “require recognising legitimate grievances of the Russians”?
• Peace negotiations can be dealt with as quid-pro-quo without recognising any legitimate grievances, like a prisoner exchange, so why would this be required as a first step for a peace negotiation?
• What form should we adopt such recognition exactly?
• Is it something that needs to be officially recorded anywhere? With what potential/likely legal and propaganda cost/benefit and strategic implications?
• What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”?
• Finally what kind of legitimate grievances against the Russians (notice how the negotiation requirements are framed around pro- and cons- for Russia, because they are the ones really need convincing not the West or the Ukrainians) is Russia required to recognize as a first step?

To recapitulate your intellectual failures so far: emotional blackmailing, slippery slopes, strawmans, ad hominem, misattribution, misinterpretation and conflations, bagging the question, framing, arbitrary accusations (like “strawman”, “tautology”, “shifting goal posts”, “love the master US”, “Russophobia”), and so ardently looping over your fallacious reasoning post after post like any brainwashed useful idiot of pro-Russian propaganda. So intellectually intimidating right? You are a textbook example of logic illiteracy, namely how one should NOT argue to be rationally compelling. What a loser.

Merkel’s revelation proves EU-inked deals not worth the paper they’re written on — DPR
https://tass.com/world/1549509

Obviously this statement is not compatible with a concern for Ukrainian welfare. The goal is to just harm Russia, not actually stop Russia from achieving it's objectives in Ukraine — “boethius

That's just dumb, obviously if Russia isn't stopped, Ukraine loses the war at great sacrifice, this isn't "good" for Ukrainian welfare — “boethius

.

By comparing these 2 quotations, anybody can immediately notice your conceptual confusion, typical of a militant mind addicted to reasoning through slogans. In the first one you do not talk just about “stop Russia” but about “stop Russia from achieving it's objectives in Ukraine”. Yet in the second quotation, the “from” clause has vanished (it’s common for slogans to use ellipsis: e.g. “Yes we can!”, “Just do it!”, “Stop Russia!”). So you are implicitly conflating “stop Russia” and “stop Russia from achieving it’s objectives in Ukraine” and then mistakenly projecting it on to me, hence your disingenuous misunderstanding. Why the conflation? The point is that for pro-Russian propaganda like yours “stop Russia” ultimately equates to “stop Russia from killing more Ukrainians by surrendering to all Russian demands” (because otherwise Russia won’t stop the killing! Possibly it will escalate to a nuclear war that will destroy humanity! etc.), and possibly let the West/NATO/US take the part/main/whole responsibility for what happened (because the Westerners have provoked Holy Russia), including all atrocities Russian committed to their alleged “brothers”. And the conclusion that this narrative is surreptitiously pushing is that if the West doesn’t want to stop Russia the way it is suggested by the pro-Russia propaganda that means that Western decision makers do not care for Ukrainian welfare, they are using Ukrainians as "cannon fodder” (in Putin’s words) to piss off Russia, so their policies against Russia will get discredited to the eyes of Western people and the Ukrainians’ people that really care for the Ukrainian welfare or their morality, and in turn likely lose their support.
So while your intellectually miserable rhetoric trick is insanely clear (which is classic pro-Russian propaganda), and explains your convenient misunderstanding and chopping my quotations, the substantial point is still the same as I fully stated it. The endgame of the West is not “to stop Russia” whatever that means, but something more specific which is not even to “stop Russia from achieving it's objectives in Ukraine”, but what I specified in the part that you conveniently chopped out from that quotation of mine: “But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West”
That’s the security concern that the West is rationally expected to prioritise as any geopolitical entity (including Ukraine and Russia). Yet as long as the West wants to extend its sphere of influence in Ukraine and Ukraine wants to join the Western sphere of influence, there is convergence of interests and since both see Russia as a security threat they are cooperating to fight such threat. To the extent there is cooperation, convergence of interest and perception of threats, Western strategy against Russia is compatible with Ukrainian welfare perspectives as they understand them.

So just say you are willing to sacrifice Ukraine and Ukrainian welfare to harm the Russians, and argue that point. Sometimes great achievements require great sacrifices (of other people). — “boethius

What did you just write?! Since when do I even have the power “to sacrifice Ukraine”?! Is that a psychological quiz to guess my astrological sign?! BTW how many Ukrainian lives did your online outrage save so far exactly? How many lives you and those you care about were you willing to sacrifice to save the world from whatever deserves your online outrage exactly?

It's just crass and cowardly to show your cards, what you truly believe, which is harming Russia is your priority and not Ukrainian welfare — “boethius

What I truly believe is that Western strategic priority is neither harming Russia nor Ukrainian welfare (yet another misattribution), it’s Western security currently threatened by Russia and other authoritarian regimes.
BTW also Ukrainian strategic priority is neither harming Russia nor Western welfare but Ukrainian security currently threatened by Russia and supported by the West.
BTW also Russia strategic priority is neither harming the Ukrainian nor the Western welfare but it’s Russia security currently threatened by Ukraine and the West.
So pertinent debate about geopolitical strategy would be about reliability of threat perception and responses of these 3 geopolitical subjects, and trying to make it personal with such fallacious emotional blackmailing objections to discredit me (instead of questioning ad rem my arguments) is just an intellectually miserable move of the worst propaganda.

BTW, since you seem to care and know about the Ukrainian welfare more than I do, I still have to ask: how many Ukrainian lives did your online outrage save so far exactly? — neomac


I'll respond to this as well, as it's such a dumb strawman. — boethius

Again that’s not a strawman but an attack “ad hominem” (as an intellectually fair retortion against your attack ad hominem against me), more specifically a “tu quoque” argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque). Unfortunately it’s not logically fallacious, because I’m not questioning your honesty to prove your arguments or claim over the war to be false, I’m simply questioning your honesty. At worst you can prove my accusation of dishonesty to be false. Unfortunately you proved to be overly intellectually dishonest. So good luck with that.

Obviously, my recommendation (my position in this argument) of a negotiated resolution to the conflict, which would require recognising legitimate grievances of the Russians (and also against the Russians) would be the first step in trying to find an acceptable compromise to the warring parties, would, if followed, result in an end to the war and saving Ukrainian lives who would otherwise perish in the trenches, explosions, from the cold in their apartments, disease, and all manner of evils which accompany a war if it was to continue (which it has).
What I can say, is that if my recommendation was followed at the start of the war (when Ukraine had likely the most leverage it would ever have) literally hundreds of thousands of people now dead would still be alive (not only in Ukraine but due to increases in food and energy prices worldwide that translates directly into more suffering and deaths).

Of course, it could be argued that whatever compromise would be required is not worth saving those lives, or that the Russian demands of an independent Donbas (at the time) and recognition of Crimea would be a worse state of affairs than the lives lost since.

It could be argued that what's important is:

The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. — neomac

And so concern of Ukrainian lives is misplaced given what can be achieved if we encourage them to fight on, even perhaps without actually "stopping the Russians" and even if we know that to be the likely outcome.

But saying a peace settlement would not result in less Ukrainian dead, is just dumb. Obviously it would.

The benefits to a peace and compromise are less death, and the benefits to more war are achieving the fruits of war (mostly territory and national pride) at the cost of a lot of death. — boethius

First, this argument doesn’t prove concern for Ukrainians’ welfare at all. You are simply suggesting a moral dilemma involving Ukrainian lives as a burden for Western/Ukrainian decision makers and their supporters, which is perfectly in line with the kind of argument pushed by pro-Russian propaganda too, including Russian decision makers, namely those who ordered committing atrocities against Ukrainians. And committing atrocities against Ukrainians doesn’t sound much like being concerned about “brother” Ukrainians, right? So your accusations exposing my alleged lack of concern for Ukrainian welfare (based on arguments I find fallacious) can be as easily and fairly retorted to you and your emotional blackmailing strategy.
Second, what do you mean by “require recognising legitimate grievances of the Russians”? Peace negotiations can be dealt with as quid-pro-quo without recognising any legitimate grievances, like a prisoner exchange, so why would this be required as a first step for a peace negotiation? What form should we adopt such recognition exactly? Is it something that needs to be officially recorded anywhere? With what potential/likely legal and propaganda cost/benefit and strategic implications? What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”? Finally what kind of legitimate grievances against the Russians (notice how the negotiation requirements are framed around pro- and cons- for Russia, because they are the ones really need convincing not the West or the Ukrainians) is Russia required to recognize as a first step?
Third, the rest of your quotation is just a text-book example of dishonest framing your opponents’ views over one single trivial point (peace settlement would result in less Ukrainian dead). Indeed you are just conjecturing arguments (“It could be argued”) and claims (“saying a peace settlement would not result in less Ukrainian dead”) and opponents’ reasons (“mostly territory and national pride” “at the cost of a lot of death”) which nobody in this thread actually expressed (certainly I didn’t), constantly framed in terms of discounting “Ukrainian lives” (“concern of Ukrainian lives is misplaced”, “not worth saving those lives”, “worse state of affairs than the lives lost since”), to hint how the moral dilemma must obviously be solved to you. In other words, an insanely clear prove of your brainwashing strategy.

Now, this is of course a debate between non-decision makers, so at no point do I have the power to directly translate my recommendations into "saving Ukrainian lives" by negotiating what I think is a reasonable resolution to the war; so proposing that as a burden of proof of some kind is just stupid.
No where do I claim I've saved Ukrainian lives, and that's basically the text-book definition of a strawman to present my position as claiming that or somehow requiring to demonstrate that.
Had there been a peaceful resolution at any point in the conflict, perhaps then I could say my analysis contributed to that in some small way, but there is no peace and no lives have been spared. — boethius

First, talking in terms of “my recommendations” is already symptomatic of your militant mindset. Unfortunately you do not look anything other than an avg anonymous dude of a philosophy forum giving “recommendations” to other avg anonymous dudes for a negotiation between Ukraine and Russia even though nobody in the thread is a decision maker (by your own assumption) nor is evidently directly involved in that war, and yet so passionately looking forward to intellectually wanking himself over the idea of a peaceful resolution where perhaps maybe who knows inshallah then he could say "his" analysis (practically copy and paste of pro-Russian propaganda) contributed to that resolution in some small microscopic infinitesimal practically unnoticeable by anybody yet so so so decisive way ?! How pathetic is that?! And I am the delusional one here?! Tell me more about "your" analysis’ contributions to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, dude! How is it going with the war in Yemen, dude?!
Second, that question wasn’t a strawman, and it didn’t mean to suggest claims of yours you didn’t make (as you repeatedly did and keep doing with me). It was an accusation of hypocrisy: your outrage and accusation of lack of concern of Ukraine welfare, your disingenuous psychological quiz, your anonymous, cheap, simplistic and unoriginal recommendations about peaceful negotiation for your self-conceited moralism prove neither my lack of concern nor your concern for Ukrainians’ welfare at all. And since exposing your interlocutors’ alleged hypocrisy seems to matter to you, no matter how pointlessly, here I’m fairly exposing your hypocrisy.
Third, elsewhere you too seemed to understand that the problem is not just peace deal to save lives which Westerners and Ukrainians want but also other critical needs including a “third party to keep Russia to its promise” and to “actually act” which also Westerners and Ukrainians want [1]. It’s wanting to satisfy all such critical needs and yet perceiving that the circumstances are such that one can not have all of them satisfied at the same time that triggers the moral dilemma. Indeed if other needs weren’t perceived at least as critical as the lives already sacrificed and at risk of being sacrificed, starting with those who must directly suffer such sacrifices of the war (i.e. the Ukrainians), there would be no moral dilemma. But since you also believe the disagreement between your views and your opponent’s views may not be related to moral corruption (as you keep so desperately trying to depict pro-Ukrainian/West supporters) but to different values [2], then until you don’t offer any rationally compelling criteria to assess how your views can be justified to your opponent with different values you’ll remain entrenched in your irrational informational bubble and arbitrary accusations of moral corruption (e.g. no concern for Ukrainian welfare, Russophobia, hypocrisy, cowardice, etc.). Such is the abyss of your intellectual misery.

It’s Xmas time and yet I have no pity for you. Go figure.

[1]

My point is simply that obviously Russia is willing to pay the cost of war with Ukraine under certain circumstances (such as circumstances that literally exist right now ... if they weren't willing, then they'd be withdrawing right now and the war would be over). Therefore, you could never reasonably assume such circumstances would not reemerge in the future regardless of any peace deal today. If there's no third party to keep Russia to its promise to not reinvade in the context of a peace deal (even ignoring the problem of why we'd believe such a third party would actually act), then there is simply nothing that can be remotely described as a guarantee of not being reinvaded available to Ukraine. — boethius

[2]

Certainly we would want law to conform to our normative disposition, but until A. all people have the same values and B. little or no corruption exists, then that won't be the case — boethius

normative statement is not the same as a legal statement. — boethius

Now, if you actually do google "normative legal force" you get a whole list of entries that explain the difference between normative and legal statements — boethius

.

I made my google search before asking you to do the same. Now I see that the problem is not the exposure to an unfamiliar jargon but, worse, your conceptual confusion. Of course there is a difference between normative statement and legal statement. That’s why I wrote: “legal” is a specification of “normative” since there are also non-legal norms. The point is that talking about normative force or legal force doesn’t presuppose any specific theory about what motivates or should motivate agents to follow norms or laws. My usage of the expression “normative legal force” in that context was descriptive and not theory-laden: there are different kinds of norms, among those norms there are legal norms or laws, and laws that agents are motived to follow can be said to have some “force”. And the reference to the UN resolution is a consistent illustration of that conceptual framework. As simple as that.

After distinguishing some other senses of the “normativity” of law, this chapter addresses its moral force. It is argued that all deontological accounts of a prima facie duty to obey the law, other than the argument from consent, fail for being unable to show that the moral value of law as an institutional order implies a duty to obey each and every legal rule. The argument from consent fails for familiar reasons. This leaves an instrumental account of the moral force of law as the only option. The upshot is that, for individuals, the moral force of law is variable, and often weak. The case is different for state officials, as subjects of either domestic or international law. Here the instrumental case for obedience is typically strong. — Chapter 3, The Normative Force of Law, Individuals and States, Liam Murphy

Is literally the first result for doing as you suggest, which is a paper explaining how there is no prima facie normative connection to law. — boethius

First, your quotation (and the entire chapter for that matter) doesn’t conflict with my conceptual framework which I clarified above. Indeed it arguably presupposes it. The quotation simply refers to the fact that there are different theoretical accounts (instrumental vs deontological) of the “moral force” of the “normativity” (which itself has different senses!) of the law. And talking about “moral force” is already a theoretical position: “while it is true that many people are motivated to act in accordance with legal norms, it is not obvious that they ought to be; there remains the question of whether there are, in fact, prudential or moral reasons to accept the law. My focus is on the moral force of law – the ancient philosophical issue of whether there is a prima facie obligation to obey the law. ” (Chapter 3, The Normative Force of Law, Individuals and States, Liam Murphy) which is a step if not several steps further the basic conceptual framework I laid out.
Second, the quotation you reported is talking about the “normativity of law” so what on earth is “there is no prima facie normative connection to law” supposed to mean? The question if “there is a prima facie obligation to obey the law” is a theoretical issue that divides deontologist from instrumentalist accounts ultimately concerning the “normativity of law”!
In other words, you just offered a good couple of intellectual failures.

“Certainly we would want law to conform to our normative disposition, but until A. all people have the same values and B. little or no corruption exists, then that won't be the case and just prepending ‘normative’ to ‘legal force’ means you don't understand the subject matter.” — boethius

First, you didn’t prove anywhere that I should understand “normative” and “legal force” the way you understand it. So judging my position according to your understanding which I find conceptually confused, begs the question.
Second, the argument that precedes your claim in bold, is intelligible also within my conceptual framework, not to mention that my conceptual framework can obviously account also for the idea of normative issues due to the clash between laws and other norms (e.g. moral norms like in the case of the Nazi anti-semitic laws or the slavery laws). So that argument doesn’t illustrate anything that would support your claim in bold.
Yet another couple of your intellectual failures.

Not only, as you account for yourself in your next paragraph, no actual UN legal basis for the West's intervention (no security council resolution) — boethius

To me, “no security council resolution” doesn’t equate to “no actual UN legal basis” for West’s intervention. Actually I argued against this equation “in the next paragraph”. So again you are attributing to me something I don’t believe nor claimed anywhere. Yet another fallacious move.

If you're moving the goal posts back to this argument, then certainly you’d agree that Russia's actions in Ukraine are entirely justified by Ukraine's defiant attitude toward Russia, and that Russia is only "wrong" in your framework if they fail to teach Ukraine a lesson — “boethius

.

First, I didn’t move any goal post. I argued against your objection, then I reminded you that in previous posts you were questioning my claim that Russia was “defiant” toward the West. So it’s you who is shifting the polemic target, after failing the previous one.
Second, “entirely justified” is not an expression I used for a reason: I already questioned the idea that Russia was strategically justified to start a war against Ukraine. So not only you are suggesting beliefs or claims I never expressed but I also explicitly questioned them. Yet another fallacious move.

As long as I don’t understand how you apply your notion of “justification” I can’t really assess if it’s consistent (BTW does “you cannot justify to others” mean that my claims are not justified until I can prove that everybody on earth agrees with me?!). — neomac

What a ludicrous straw man — “boethius

.

What on earth did you just write?! Are you crazy?! A “strawman argument” is an argument: A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)
I didn’t formulate any argument, there is no conclusion from premises in there: I just confessed that I don’t understand your notion of “justification” and I can not assess it, and added a question concerning your obscure expression “you cannot justify to others”. Yet another catastrophic intellectual failure of yours.

First, justifying one's actions to others is independent of whether the actions are justified or if others agree. The actions can be justified but you fail to convince anyone. Likewise, the actions could unjust but everyone agrees with you.

Indeed, one maybe engaged in a process of justification one knows to be false (lying to investigators, or throwing out UN resolutions as having "legal force"), but hope other parties agree. Of course, in this scenario, presumably one has some internal justification for presenting a false justification.

Even more bizarre is the idea the entire world would need to agree as a condition for justification, which doesn't even make any internal sense. For, if the proposition isn't justified until everyone agrees ... why would one be justified to try to convince people of it's truth, which is by definition is false until everyone agrees.

Obviously in any remotely common sense ethical framework, the truth of a justification is independent of others agreeing it's true.

Since your arguments don't make any sense and are mutually incompatible, also take note of your trying to flip the burden of proof of what "justification" means, as it's very clear your actual position is that you're a fan of US hegemony, which, by definition, non-US partisans should not be a fan of by the same logic of lust power. Of course, if people under hegemonic control, such as Europe, can be convinced the hegemony is good for them, that's a better situation, even if one knows that's the self delusion copium of de facto captives and advancing their own interests, rather than the hegemon's, would, by definition, be in their interest to do. — “boethius

Dude, I explained what I mean by “justification”, so I already unburdened myself of this task. And it’s a while that I keep asking you what you mean by “justification”. You just recently tried to clarify it, but I still do not understand it. I told you that and asked questions:

• Can you show better how your accusation follows from your notion of “justification”?
• Does “you cannot justify to others” mean that my claims are not justified until I can prove that everybody on earth agrees with me?!

Unfortunately I still don’t see any positive answers to my questions in your delirious rant. So can you answer them or not? Give it a try at least.
Here an additional question: since you believe the following “Certainly we would want law to conform to our normative disposition, but until A. all people have the same values and B. little or no corruption exists, then that won't be the case” how can we possibly justify (in your terms) our position to others if they do not share our values or we can’t assure that little or no corruption exists?

Describing how the US / NATO endgame need not be Ukrainian “victory” but just sufficient harm to Russia could nevertheless be compatible with maximising Ukrainian welfare is just a farce.

In what plausible version of the world, would Ukraine losing the war, with the death and casualties so far and likely at least as much but likely many multiples on the way to losing, and then losing, would be compatible with Ukrainian welfare? — “boethius

You are making objections to my position based on a poor understanding of my claims and on unclarified notions of “victory” and “losing” for Ukraine. But to me it’s non-trivial matter to understand what counts as “victory” or “losing” in terms of welfare for Ukrainians. All I said about this is: both Ukraine and the West/US converge enough in fighting Russia until Russia ceases to be a threat to both, whence their allegiance. The West/US have strategic, legal and moral reasons to support such convergence. Notice also that Ukraine expressed its interest in entering Western/US sphere of influence by joining NATO and/or EU so the convergence may not be occasional but systemic. However the competitive game these players are engaging in is full of uncertainties and occasions for non-negligible divergence which players must deal with. Nobody can offer a recipe for victory or a full account of what’s best in the long term.
So I don’t have some idealised notion of “victory” for Ukraine/West nor I have some idealised notion of “compatibility” between Western and Ukrainians’ interests. I just see enough convergence in interests and effective means to pursue common goals.
Besides, the Japan case in WW2 proves that even in the most daring post-war conditions things can turn out to improve in terms of rights and welfare in the long term under the right surrounding conditions. So I’m relatively confident that the Western sphere of influence can offer such surrounding conditions to Ukraine at the end of this war, more likely than remaining outside of it or falling under the Russian sphere of influence. Apparently Ukrainians believe the same. And if that’s a farce to you, I don’t care.

You literally state NATO/US involvement need not be to "stop Russia".

And you accuse me of quibbling? You literally need basically magic to imagine a scenario in which "not stopping Russia" is in the welfare of Ukrainians. Sure, "logically" we can imagine by some unexpected turn of events that magic is real, reincarnation a breeze, memory replacement facile, and so on, Russia isn't "stopped" and this is actually great for Ukraine.

Indeed, "logically" there is nothing that prevents Russia winning but this somehow results in Zelensky becoming emperor of the entire planet, immortal, and a just and wise ruler who solves all our problems.

Do you even consider a few seconds what you are writing? — “boethius

Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! Yet if the endgame was stopping Russia, the quickest effective way would be for the West to force Ukraine to surrender to all Russian demands, or not even start a “proxy war” against Russia in the first place, right?! But that’s neither the Western endgame nor the Ukrainians’. So YES concern for the Ukrainian welfare is LITERALLY and REASONABLY compatible with not stopping Russia if that means Ukrainian surrender.
As always, I’m responsible for what I write, not for what you understand.
Said that, let’s deal with your myopic conspiracist mindset which is likely driving such preposterous understanding and accusations of my position: even if immoral dispositions like cynicism, power lust, greed (of the lobbyists e.g. the weapon industry, the oil shale industry, financial institutions, etc.) are the dominant motivational factors of Western policies and narratives against Russia (which I do not believe, but I won’t a priori exclude for the sake of the argument) would this be necessarily incompatible with advancing Ukrainian welfare? I doubt that for 2 reasons: 1. Also Western policies and narratives appeasing Russia (as well as anti-Western policies and narratives from Russia and the Rest for that matter!) may be driven by exactly the same immoral motives, so if such policies and narratives would still be compatible with advancing Ukrainian welfare (even in just relative terms), the immoral motivational factors behind them are not the issue 2. Alternatively, even if such motives will likely be pursued by each opposing faction at the expense of Ukrainian welfare, it still remains the possibility that the clash of opposing factions may wear out the most wicked effects of those motivations on the Ukrainian welfare at some point e.g. by leading to a negotiation between opposing factions that may benefit the Ukrainian welfare, regardless of the persisting immoral motivational factors behind such a negotiation.

You do not mention Ukrainian welfare in your "endgame" because you do not care about Ukrainian welfare. You care only about harming Russia due to some irrational fear (especially when combined with the belief that the Russian military is incompetent ... of which the corollary is they are nothing to fear); i.e. your entire position rests upon Russuphobia and, as you say, not mentioning Ukrainian welfare. — “boethius

Your attacks ad hominem would be more credible if your fallacious arguments ad rem weren’t so overwhelming. BTW, since you seem to care and know about the Ukrainian welfare more than I do, I still have to ask: how many Ukrainian lives did your online outrage save so far exactly?

I thought "practical rationality" was your pseudo-intellectual slogan, and you dare move the goal posts to "logical compatibility"? — “boethius

Both are rational requirements that you extrapolated from their argumentative context just to randomly reiterate one of your “big lies”. There is no moving goal posts on my part. There never was.

Kudos for your epic failure practically on all your points!

Again, "normative legal force" is just pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Are you adding "normative" to "legal force" because you are aware there is no actual legal force involved in the situation? Or do you just have no idea what you're talking about? — boethius

In “normative legal force” the expression “normative” refers to the fact that laws are norms and “legal” is a specification of “normative” since there are also non-legal norms. Now “normative force” and “law” or “legal system”, or “legal force” are part of very common jargon in the juridical domain. Google it if you have no idea what I am talking about.
Besides you are the one to believe that international law is “ornamental” or with “zero meaning”. I already made my point against this. And I stick to it (even recently Macron was talking about “security guarantees” for Russia).

In terms of the situation, legal justification for military action under the UN system requires a security council vote, which Russia obviously vetos.
As for the votes you're talking about in the general assembly of the UN, they have no legal force in military matters — boethius

That could be a conclusive objection if one took “LEGALLY JUSTIFIES the western policies of the West against Russia” as meaning that each Western foreign policy (like economic sanctions and military support of Western countries) against Russia should be approved by a UN resolution to be legally justified. But that’s not necessary at all, nor I claimed otherwise anywhere. Indeed, international law resolutions that for whatever reason are not enough to coordinate an effective action against infractions still leave the UN members the initiative to take such resolution as a legal justification for national law foreign policies. So the UN resolution wasn’t just a demoscopic survey with no legal consequences, indeed it legally justified Western national policies against Russia.
Besides your legal quibble is irrelevant wrt he original point of contention: I referred to the UN resolution against the Russian invasion of Ukraine to clarify my original claim about Russian defiant attitude toward the West.

Indeed, justification can be anything you mention, but the essential element is we are justifying it to others with some relation to the concept of "justice" that's universal in some way. Of course, what sorts of theories and arguments can be used to justify an action is wide open, the common element is that justification is towards others; arguments we want other to agree with

"Regardless of justification" in the context I use it, refers to the US/NATO, or you own, justifications to others about the policies. You've made it quite clear you are on the "side of the West" and simply want the West to win. That is not a justification to me, or to other third parties that need not pick a side (India, Africa etc.), and certainly not less Russia. — boethius

About time you made an effort to clarify your own terminology. My impression is that your notion of “justification” is pretty general as mine, if not even more vague than mine, with possibly some non-negligible differences like the relation to the notion of “justice” and the “universal” clause. In any case, I can’t clearly see how the notion of “justification” you just laid out is enough to support your accusation (i.e. “regardless of justification”) against my claims and what has this to do with my being “on the side of the West”. Can you show better how your accusation follows from your notion of “justification”?

Now, you may accept that what you want you cannot justify to others (although it maybe still useful to your purposes to fool them into believing the actions are justified) and have a separate internal justification for your actions. In this case, within your own head, there becomes two uses of the word justification; one use is essentially how you try to trick others, say a public position on the matter, and another use is why you are actually doing what you're doing, say a private position. So, in this duelism it can make sense to talk of your justifications for trying to convince others of your justifications which are not your real justifications, but it serves your real justification if others believe your justifications for other reasons. — boethius

As long as I don’t understand how you apply your notion of “justification” I can’t really assess if it’s consistent (BTW does “you cannot justify to others” mean that my claims are not justified until I can prove that everybody on earth agrees with me?!).
My notion of “justification” is easy to understand: the UN resolution against Russian invasion, Russian threatening and defying attitudes toward the West, historical and current Russian genocidal oppression of Ukrainians justifies Western policies against Russia among others justify Western attitude toward Russia based respectively on legal, security and moral criteria shared among Western countries. Where is the trick exactly in claiming this?
Maybe you could argue according to your notion of “justification” (which I’m not committed to) that those reasons are not enough to justify my or Western position because India, Africa and Russia, you disagree with that. But why should I or Westerners care about this? I or Westerners may not see universal agreement necessarily as an attainable or desirable goal under the current circumstances. And if I or Westerners disagree with Russia/India/Africa’s or your position, they & you aren’t justified either, because they & you can not justify your position to me or Westerners, right?
Besides in the case of power competition, unreconcilable disagreements are likely the root cause of the outbreak of conflicts between involved parties so I don’t see how “justification” for involved parties’ policies could reasonably require previous agreement of all involved parties.

if US hegemonic status is a justification, which you clearly state it is, then if Russia wins the war then it's just asserting its hegemonic power over Ukraine, and likewise justified. If the US can't stop Russia then clearly it isn't a global hegemone, as it was unable to determine the outcome of this even that happened on the globe. US may, nevertheles, have a larger sphere of hegemoning than Russia, but it is not global. — boethius

We can agree on this as long as you don’t confuse your notion of “justification” with mine. In a competitive game between countries for global hegemony each country can act at the expense of their adversaries the way they see fit. But that’s not enough for practical rationality applied to geopolitical agents. Indeed countries’ policies toward potential or actual enemies must also take into account available means and related usage to effectively succeed. In other words, taking into account not only relevant security goals but also available means to ensure those goals are preconditions for the kind of rational attitude the countries can exhibit. A chess player’s moves are justified by the chess game rules not only if they are aiming at checkmating the rival, but also if they are adequately assessed as effective to that end. The reciprocal situation holds for the adversary of course.

In particular, your point 3 is extremely clear "the end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian."
Your "end game" involves zero consideration of Ukrainian welfare nor any notion that it would be justified — boethius

The fact that I didn’t mention "Ukrainian welfare” in that statement is not enough to conclude that there is zero consideration of the Ukrainian welfare on the NATO/US’s part. Indeed there is no logical incompatibility between that “end game” and consideration for Ukrainian welfare. In other words, it may be in the interest of the Western power struggle against Russia to take into account the Ukrainian welfare, for the simple reason that power is grounded not only on brute military force and systematic deceit, but also on consensus, reliable partnership/alliance, and related reputational profile. That’s why discrediting the West also through dishonest arguments is so important for the pro-Russian propaganda like yours.

Which, whether the war is even doing that, would be an interesting question which I'm happy to debate. It could be the war is harming Russia, but it could also be Russia will come out of this war with a far more efficient and powerful army, more autonomous economy and new international banking system and so little reason to ever stop "defying the West" (had Putin implemented the sanctions himself this would have certainly caused serious domestic problems, but since the West did it for him, it's easy to say the West doesn't want to do business with Russia ... sort of what sanctions mean), rapidly replace any equipment, and all its neighbour's far less (rather than more) willing to "defy" Russia, seeing as they clearly can and will do what it takes to destroy your entire economy and the West clearly doesn't have a solution to the needing gas problem. — boethius

I would be more interested in the empirical evidence supporting your conjectures.

So, if you want to stop advancing propaganda, we could discuss what you actually believe, which is that the US / West can and should use this war to harm Russia in pure power competition terms. Ukrainian welfare doesn't matter, nor any other justification, just harming Russia. — boethius

I believe all I claimed so far. So we are already discussing what I actually believe. You simply repeatedly failed to understand it. Or you are simply playing dumb.
I don’t know what you mean by “in pure power competition terms”, I’m more inclined to say that there is no “pure” power competition. Power competition is messy, without predefined and universally accepted way to account for strategies, and practically everything can serve it (including unintended consequences or unpredictable circumstances).
I didn’t claim anywhere that “Ukrainian welfare doesn't matter, nor any other justification”. Quote where I did made such claims, instead of putting words in my mouth like the most intellectually dishonest propaganda.

The problem with your position is that historically wars, even extremely harmful wars in the short term (such as the American civil war, or WWI or WWII), generally result in any non-losing-party having far more powerful military at the end of the war.

Indeed, even losing parties can radically increase their real military power, such as Germany after WWI still had all sorts of "war experience" benefits even if physical war fighting capacity was essentially dismantled, despite this and the high casualties it is applying the experience and lessons of WWI that Germany could then rapidly rebuild their military power and fight WWII. — boethius

I would be more interested in Russian history’s lessons: https://www.rferl.org/a/adam-michnik-russia-ukraine-change-putin-brezhnev-afghan-war/31808312.html

However, in the case of the war at hand, there is little probability that Russia will lose. At best, it "won't win". — boethius

Since you didn’t specify what counts as “win” or “lose” to you, all I can say is that if we are talking great power competition then it’s relative power which must be assessed, and most importantly its trend in the long term, which is the most difficult part to account for when we are still in the middle of these events. In any case, I don’t care about your conclusions, I care about your arguments.

Furthermore, in your hegemon's got to hegemon, you don't consider at all China.
Viewed as a proxy war between Russia and the US, perhaps US is winning something at some expense (at the expense of the destruction of Ukraine), but viewed as a proxy war between China and the West, China is winning a great deal at no expense; indeed, if the first view is correct, the West is weakening due to this war as well as Russia, an otherwise regional competitor.
So, if this war with Russia is satisfying some "rational requirement" of a global hegemon, there should be some argument as to why this helps against China, a more economically powerful adversary.
For, if China is a larger threat to US hegenomic power, which was the basis of all this talk of "pivoting" to East-Asia for over 2 decades, then optimum hegemomic strategy would be to "divide and conquer" the would be Russia-China alliance, and certainly not expend immense material and political capital in trying to harm the weaker of the two in such a team. — boethius

It’s not true that I didn’t consider at all China. Certainly I didn’t say much about my understanding of the American strategy toward China nor I have the intention to start a discussion on another contentious subject now, so I limit myself to say that I don’t believe that “China is winning a great deal at no expense” nor that “the optimum hegemonic strategy would be to ‘divide and conquer’ the would be Russia-China alliance”. All I can concede is that there are implied non-negligible costs and risks for the West at least in the short period, arguably significantly more for the Europeans than for the US.

↪neomac
You can block posts by certain members using SophistiCat’s browser extension: — Jamal

:up:

Probably these feature requests were already made by others, but it's worth reminding: I would like to filter out threads based on the category (e.g. short stories) and posts based on the author. These could be available setups in the user profile.

This is just a word salad and has nothing to do with your original argument.

Your original argument tied "defiant" to justification of Western policies ... you've just moved the goal posts to Russia is doing things the West doesn't like. Yeah, no shit.

Now, does not liking what someone is doing justify any particular course of action? No. — boethius

There is no post goal shift. The UN resolution expresses the majoritarian will of its voters (the West/US among them) as much as a democratic election expresses the majoritarian will of the voters: if one political candidate would violently rebel against the results of such democratic elections despite their legality or without legally appealing against them, this political candidate would be defiant of what has been ruled as expression of people’s majoritarian will. So concerning the Russian “special military operation”, there is a UN resolution which has a normative legal force and such resolution widely expresses the will of the West/US. And yes the international law resolution against the Russian “special military operation” LEGALLY JUSTIFIES the western policies of the West against Russia.
At the same time due to the fact that Russia is pursuing its war AGAINST that resolution supported by the West/US AND THEREFORE the will of the West/US, Russia is playing the role of the defiant minor power against the West/US major power. Add to that all other facts I mentioned about Russian hostility in acts and deeds toward the Western-led World order.
So, if that’s not enough for you to apply the notion of "defiant" to Russia then I do not understand what else could possibly count as “defiant” to you in the case of great power conflicts.

If Russian "defiance" against the West justifies Western policies, then the Ukrainian "defiance" of Russia justifies Russian policies. — boethius

Again “justifies” in what sense? From the international law point of view, no. Russia wasn’t legally justified since there was no UN resolution in support of Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine. While the West/NATO were legally justified in applying sanctions to Russia and military supporting Ukraine.
However one can argue that, despite of what international law ruled, Russia was/is engaged in a geopolitical competitive game where players’ moves are made at the expense of adversaries so it was/is strategically justified in invading Ukraine because it felt/feels threatened by the Ukrainian defiance and/or NATO enlargement. Even in this case, if one wants to assess the rationality of this strategy one shouldn’t consider only objectives and perceived threats of a single party, but also means and ways of using them to effectively succeed against competitors which in their turn have objectives, perceived threats and available means to pursue their goals. In that sense, I’m not sure whether the “military special operation” was unquestionably the best strategy for Russia to preserve/expand its allegedly threatened hegemony, because NATO was already losing relevance at least to main EU members, economic ties with EU were pretty solid, Germany and France were against Ukraine joining NATO (predictably to appease Russian security concerns), the alliance between Russia, China and other Asian countries was building up, the Russian military projection and relevance in Middle East and Africa was growing, and the annexation of Crimea was already a de facto smooth achievement ensuring control over the Black sea, the US was troubled by more pressing issues (the domestic politics crisis and the strategic challenge represented by China). So Russia didn’t seem strategically impelled to take such a risky move as intelligence failures, military poor performance on the battlefield, and hostile reaction/resilience of the West/US made clear. Precisely because Russia didn't seem strategically impelled to make such a risky move many geopolitical analysts didn't believe Russia would probably start a war until Russia actually started it.
While the West/US were more impelled to react against an aggressively expansionist Russia. This was definitely a non-negligible wake-up call for the Europeans, and for the US as long as the US wants the European countries within its sphere of influence.

And you've already laid your cards on the table, in that you simply want the West to win this confrontation, so you support Western policies regardless of justification or trying to reconcile with what they West itself does and rights it claims (pre-emptive war, shock and awe, etc.) — boethius

You keep talking about “justification” without clarifying what you mean by it. To me the term “justification” is pretty general and it expresses the idea that some relevant shareable rational requirement is satisfied. In any case its application varies depending on what set of rational standards one wants to take into consideration: strategic, moral, legal, military, economic, diplomatic you name it. That’s why generically talking about “justification” is ambiguous and potentially misleading.

and regardless of whether they are a benefit to Ukraine.
You state clearly several times the only objective that needs to be achieved is harming the Russian military (not Ukrainian victory, not any benefits at all for Ukraine, even the total destruction of Ukraine is acceptable if Russia is also harmed). — boethius

If I clearly stated several times what you attribute to me, you can easily quote myself, but I don’t see any such quotation. Besides your understanding of my claims is under question, your serial misinterpretation of my claims is intellectually creepy, so using the word “clearly” is no assurance of your understanding at all.
To clarify my views here once more: both Ukraine and the West/US converge enough in fighting Russia until Russia ceases to be a threat to both, whence their allegiance. The West/US have strategic, legal and moral reasons to support such convergence. Notice also that Ukraine expressed its interest in entering Western/US sphere of influence by joining NATO and/or EU so the convergence may not be occasional but systemic.
However the competitive game these players are engaging in is full of uncertainties and occasions for non-negligible divergence which players must deal with. Nobody can offer a recipe for victory or a full account of what’s best in the long term. One may think that “justification” must be based on such recipes or accounts, but I find this approach conceptually flawed. As an avg dude, I would rely more on geopolitical speculation and historical analogies for guidance.

So, argue this position, rather than throw out pseudo-intellectual bullshit that is quite clearly just trying to prop up the propaganda (in this case the US's claim of holding up the "rules based international system" as reason to arm Ukraine, is clearly where you sourced your "defiance" justifies Western policies, but you can support that because it's a bullshit argument, so you move the goal posts to simply someone is defying something in this situation, which is clear: Ukraine is defying Russia, therefore, according to your argument, Russia is completely justified in destroying entirely Ukraine to put a stop to that defiance).

You may think of yourself as an astute intellectual, but you are not.
Astute intellectuals make a clear and meaningful point.
Propagandists throw shit against the wall, see what sticks, throw more shit at whatever spot they think has landed, which is what you do. — boethius

If you want to play the ad hominem game, then I can as easily accuse you of rehashing pro-Russian propaganda. In any case, I don’t care what side you pick. What counts to me is the quality of your arguments and counterarguments. Rephrasing and caricaturing my claims after dismissing the logic of my arguments (e.g. when I’m pointing at facts and motives by which Russia is intentionally defying the West/US, its stability and its hegemony), associating extrapolated ideas the way it suits you (e.g. “defying” & “international law”), introducing ambiguous terms I didn’t use without clarifying them (like “justification”), or muddling the meaning of those terms which are already clear enough (like “defiant”), and then brainwash yourself over your straw mans against me despite my reiterated clarifications are all rhetoric tricks of the most intellectually dishonest propaganda.

May I ask if you live in the EU, or follow EU politics closely? — Olivier5

I do.

Irrespective of what the Parisian journalists you quote may opine, there's no way any single nation will lead Europe. Even Merkel with the weight of the German economy behind her and her amazing personal qualities and exceptional length in service, was never an unchallenged leader of the EU. — Olivier5

Indeed none of the articles I quoted (nor even Macron himself) is likely adopting some hyperbolic notion of "leadership" given the European political context. As suggested in the first article I referenced, the comparison that understandably comes to mind is approximately with Angela Merkel as a role-model, Draghi as a strong competitor. Considering France's strong economy plus greater military capacity and geopolitical projection (e.g. Africa, Middle East, Asia) than Germany or Italy, Macron's pro-active attitude and ambitious plans for the EU, he clearly had good cards in his hands to be more influential than he's turning out to be. My impression is that's not just fault of bad luck.

I don't know what leadership you are talking about — Olivier5

I'm referring to what is more extensively discussed here:
https://www.capital.fr/economie-politique/emmanuel-macron-mario-draghi-olaf-scholz-qui-prendra-le-leadership-de-la-zone-euro-apres-angela-merkel-1421587
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2022/07/02/la-france-et-l-ue-presidence-reussie-mais-leadership-fragile_6133075_3232.html
https://mouvement-europeen.eu/avec-macron-la-france-peut-elle-prendre-le-leadership-de-leurope/
https://www.lesechos.fr/politique-societe/emmanuel-macron-president/politique-etrangere-un-leadership-europeen-retrouve-une-strategie-mondiale-infructueuse-1394289

you may be assessing Macron against unreasonable expectations. — Olivier5

I'm assessing Macron's recent call for "discussions about security guarantees for Russia" as a misstep toward attaining his ambitious goals for Europe.