Did the U.S. ever pay reparations to Vietnam? Or one of the many countries it destroyed during its crusade in the Middle-East?

Am I doing it wrong?

This forum has practically no audience. It's just a few posters. There are more moderators on this forum than posters on any given day. — frank

Hey now.

Then your terminology is misleading:
Hard power encompasses a wide range of coercive policies, such as coercive diplomacy, economic sanctions, military action, and the forming of military alliances for deterrence and mutual defense. — neomac

After the Cold War, NATO became something different from a military alliance that pursued deterrence and mutual defense, since there was no enemy to defend against.

What happened after the Cold War is that the Americans collected their prize.

It became a different name for the European part of the American sphere of influence, and a soft power tool to control Europe, even if it's original nature was a hard power deterrent towards Russia.

That change in character is well-documented and part of the reason why NATO went through several identity crises post-Cold War.

This isn't misleading language, this is simply understanding the purpose of NATO post-Cold War from the American perspective.

There are many factors that shape threat perception in geopolitical agents military capacity being one of the most important, but not the only one (and notice that in the case of Russia things are complicated by the fact that Russia is not only the 3rd rank country by military capability but also the country with the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, relevant to the defensive/offensive military capacity balance, and that it’s military/offensive capacity can sum up with the Chinese one in case of a anti-American alliance). Military capacity is important because it concurs to shape “security dilemmas” but for that also aggressive intentions count (signalling strategies and ideological convergence may help in mitigating the issue), so geopolitical agents are prone to detect and anticipate potential threats based on other geopolitical agents’ past/current behavior and their dispositions/opportunities for alliance and conflict.
Reactions may be defensive or offensive (pre-emptive): especially, hegemonic powers may certainly not wait for threatening competitors to be strong enough to attack, before reacting against them. As I wrote elsewhere, geopolitical strategies can involve long-term goals covering decades and generations to come (so timing is important too). Any response implies risks, because of uncertainties induced by mistrust, complexity/timing of coordination and unpredictable events (like a pandemic).
Now let’s talk about “threat perception” for the American hegemonic power (which, not surprisingly, is perfectly in line with “offensive realist” views [1]):
”Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
"There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the U.S must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” (source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/wolf.html)
Pretty diabolical, isn’t it?! Yet in the last 30 years, Europe got richer and less committed (in terms of security/economy) toward the US, and at the same time Russia and China got much richer (also related avg standard of life improved), more militarised and assertive abroad, in the hope of extending their sphere of influence at the expense of the US. Europeans, Russia and China abundantly exploited the institutions and free-market (the soft-power!) supported by the Pax Americana after the end of Cold-War era. While anti-Americanism grew stronger. What could possibly go wrong given those “security” premises by the hegemonic power? — neomac

Right, so it was never about actual threat perception. It was about pre-emptively protecting U.S. hegemony. That's basically what I've been saying all along.

While you (like many here) keep focusing on arguable failures of the American interventionism in middle-east (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.) and whine over the drawbacks of American imperialism (as if any avg dude on the internet could plausibly offer a better and realistic alternative), you close an eye over the part of the world that abundantly profited from the Pax Americana (or, if you prefer, the neoconservative liberal democratic capitalist Blob military-industrial-complex satanist American foreign policy). This intellectually dishonest attitude reminds me of a famous Napolitan maxim: “chiagne e fotte”, it roughly means “whine (over injustice of the system) and keep screwing them (the system) over”. — neomac

Ask the people of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lybia, and all the other nations the United States invaded and cast into the fires (a long list it be) what they thought of that "Pax Americana". :vomit:

That's a huge topic, which I am not going to go into detail on because A) I don't believe you're genuinely interested in what I have to say (I'm not an American, after all), and B) it would derail the thread.

Go do your own research.

Here's a place you could start:

Why America's Grand Strategy Has Not Changed: Power, Habit and the U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment

The foreign policy establishment. Do you live in America?

No.

In one way or another, probably so.

There are plenty of scholars who make the argument, and I find it quite compelling.

Foreign policy and geopolitical strategy are things that may take years, even decades, to unfold. It makes no sense to leave such things to the political squabblings of camp red and blue. Moreover, US foreign policy over the decades does not give that impression, and tends to be cohesive over long periods of time.

The power of the various lobbies also is well-documented, and you can research that yourself.

NATO is not expression of soft-power — neomac

Because the point of NATO is to military defend a country against aggressors. — neomac

United States controls Europe through NATO. That is to say, it controls Europe through (in this case) political means not dependent on coercion.

The nature of soft power is the lack of a coercive element.

Your point seems to be that a military alliance cannot have a soft power dimension. I don't see any reason why that would be the case, and I think NATO is a clear example to the contrary.

No one forced the Europeans to neglect their militaries, with the end result of making them completely dependent on the United States for their defense, and thus greatly increasing United States influence. The Europeans did that completely voluntarily.

What a beautiful example of soft power at work.

“historical grievance” was treated just as pretext — neomac

That's an assumption on your part.

In my mind there's no question that ex-Soviet republics joined NATO in large part because of their history with the Soviet Union, and that the United States made use of that fact to expand NATO beyond what could be rationally explained by a foreign (Russian) threat.

What’s your argument? A comparison of US military capacity and Russian military capacity is enough to make your point? — neomac

Essentially, yes. What would you like me to compare instead? GDP? Think it'll paint a different picture?

You and I disagree about whether or not people in a vegetative state are people. — T Clark

If hypothetically WBGD would be possible with a deceased body, would that change your mind about whether it's permissable?

It seems pretty morbid to me either way, but not as morbid as the opt-out part.

How did we end up with a situation in which the government owns your body unless you pay the ransom?

To clarify once again my point, I asked you "Why would the US care to protect the EU against a potential aggression from Russia?" and your answer was roughly that the US needs to control Europe and its “immense powerful nations” from becoming its own great power or fall under the control of another foreign power. — neomac

I tried to give you an explanation for why the United States is worried about controlling Europe, which it evidently is.

If your argument is "they shouldn't be", then that's something you'll have to discuss with the policy makers in Washington, I suppose.

I find your reasoning pretty confused. — neomac

My point was that NATO was a tool to expand US influence, not whether the Europeans' feelings of historical grievance and/or fear were justified.

Your confusion would probably lessen if you paid more attention to what I write, and less to what you believe I am implying.

A part from the fact that you start underplaying the influence of US presidents over foreign policy, ... — neomac

Yes. Let there be no doubt about my position on this: US presidents don't have much influence over foreign policy at all. Many tried. Obama for example, who famously failed and admitted this in his exit interview. Trump also.

The neoconservative lobby, aka "the Blob" is probably the most powerful entity in US politics.

The “bombastic words” by Trump were taken so seriously by the Congress representatives themselves to the point that:
Such concerns led the House of Representatives in January 2019, to pass the NATO Support Act (H.R. 676), confirming Congress' support for NATO and prohibiting Trump from potentially withdrawing from NATO. On December 11, 2019, the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill to be put in front of Congress which would require congressional approval for American withdrawal from NATO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO — neomac

You're making my point for me. Trump (might have) wanted to leave NATO. The establishment ensured he couldn't. Who is in power here? Not Trump.

What did you just write?! — neomac

NATO has a clear soft power element in terms of the relation between the US and it's allies. I don't see what's controversial or hard to understand about that. It's pretty obvious.

You make no sense to me. On one side you claim: “when powerful nations are close to each other, conflict is bound to arise. And the United States' sphere of influence was inching ever closer to Russia. Powerful nations care greatly about what the other powerful nations are doing in their backyard”. So it’s all about Russian threat perception , that you seem to find definitively justified being Russia a powerful nation, even though NATO is defensive alliance, Russia is 3rd rank country by military capability with the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, Germany/France were against Ukraine within NATO (and cozying up to Russia), Russia had already annexed Crimea easy-peasy and whatever military support Ukraine got prior to the war wasn’t significant enough to pose any threat to Russia.
On the other side, when it’s time to assess the Russian threat from Western perspective, Russia is all of a sudden a small great power, nothing new or special, just busy serving their interests militarily all over the globe (but apparently not its borders despite all pretexts for territorial disputes and Russian minorities to protect) whose military build-up posed no threat to Europe (in other words, very powerful nation but not so very powerful nation after all, and let’s bother us over the fact that we are talking about the 3rd rank country by military capability with the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, very much active in the Mediterranean Sea & North Africa, Middle East, East Europe and Baltic sea, so all around Europe!) and whose nasty political/economic leverage in the West wasn’t used to mess with America’s backyard at all. — neomac

Yes. Russia was not a threat to NATO at any point between 1989 up until now. Clearly that doesn't mean it wasn't still a powerful nation. Just not in relation to US/NATO.

Oh so now the US doesn’t want to control Europe (hosting “immensely powerful nations”) because Mackinder/Brzezinski say so, it wants to lead it down the path of its own destruction?! — neomac

You're just putting words in my mouth.

I guess I'll have to state the obvious; the US wants to control Europe. And in its desire to control, the US frequently destroys nations. Vietnam, the entire Middle-East, etc.

Ukraine is going to be the next addition to that list, I'm afraid.

What you are so surreptitiously yet so clumsily trying to do is to support the idea that the West had no reason to fear Russia, and Russia had all reasons to fear the West. — neomac

I'd probably put it in slightly more nuanced terms, but that's indeed the part of the point I have been making for a while now, and unapologetically so.


Your posts seem to degenerate into walls of text worth of ravings. Can you try to make your points in a straightforward fashion? And try doing so without putting words in my mouth or assuming that I am implying all sorts of things which I am not.

Seems unlikely, — jorndoe

It's hard to make sense of it.

It basically signals that the Ukrainians fear an offensive from the north, while the chance of such an agreement being signed seems very low.

Perhaps it's a way to test whether the Belarussians are planning to get involved in the war. Declining would imply yes, agreeing would imply no. Though even if they weren't planning to get involved they would probably still decline for the sake of ambiguity.

Maybe the goal of the action is the signal itself; to feign weakness.

Or maybe the goal is simply to confuse.

But I admit here: my objection to reproductive use of the undead is aesthetic and practical, rather than eithcal. — Vera Mont

My most obvious objection to it would be that we have no idea what the consequences are for the child of being gestated in what is essentially a corpse, as opposed to in a living, loving, breathing mother.

A dead person has no 'interests'. — Vera Mont

What happens to one's corpse? It's either buried/cremated and in both cases, perfectly working organs are destroyed when they could actually save lives. I say we harvest organs of dead people. Why would they mind at all? — Agent Smith

I suppose we might as well have an opt-out system for having one's dead body used as a high-quality sex doll for necrophiliacs. Who would pass up on such an amazing opportunity to make others happy after their death?

To some degree, that has always been the case. ... — Vera Mont

Regrettably so. Luckily we as free individuals have a choice to resist such unethical practices!

But the present question concerns power over dead bodies, ... — Vera Mont

Note that 's idea seems to extend not just to the dead body, but to the whole person even while alive.

It should be noted that if one's body is made property of the state, that "state" is in fact only a surrogate term for a collection of (usually highly corrupt) individuals who hold power. In other words, one's body becomes the property of other individuals - slavery.

1 - Europe is still far from turning into its own great power: existing military deficiencies and “strategic cacophony” inside Europe (also between France and Germany too) remain an obstacle to reach strategic autonomy
2 - EU with its large market (which included East Europe) is not Germany (nor Germany and France)
3 - The new developing economies (in South Asia, South America and Africa) are expected to become more relevant in next decades while EU is becoming less and less competitive
4 - Russia is supposed to be a mafia state and declining power so whatever they will be able to achieve by stretching further West their hegemony won’t be an evident challenge to the US military and economy
5 - The greatest challenge to American hegemony comes from China so the Americans might think to take Russia on their side to fight against China. — neomac

All fair points, yet I don't think many would argue Europe isn't still very important to the United States,

So no, at the moment, it’s not evident that the US must intervene or engage more than it does in Ukraine... — neomac

I don't know where you get the idea that I implied as much. If anything I believe the Europeans should stop backing the war in Ukraine and encourage the Americans to leave as fast as possible.

If there was virtually no military threat from Russia why the NATO expansion then? — neomac

Because NATO became a tool to expand US influence through soft power, and there was plenty of historical grievance to build it on.

Putin (after the annexation in Crimea and still at war in Donbas) didn’t seem too much worried about the US until Trump was there, right? — neomac

US presidents have very little influence over foreign policy, so I don't think Trump's presidency made any difference in the Russian's view of the situation at all.

If anything Trump probably eased their minds at least for a little while, since he was all about his America First policy and a commitment to stopping "forever wars" across thousands of miles of ocean, etc. Of course, Trump used some bombastic words but such rhetoric isn't aimed at or taken seriously by world leaders. That was aimed at the US population towards which he wanted to seem like the "strongman".

And why would Putin worry about NATO expansion if it’s just American soft-power and American military presence was declining? — neomac

That should be obvious. When powerful nations are close to each other, conflict is bound to arise. And the United States' sphere of influence was inching ever closer to Russia. Powerful nations care greatly about what the other powerful nations are doing in their backyard.

And you underestimate the power of soft power if you think it cannot pose a serious threat to other countries. The American empire is largely based on soft power, though it never shied away from hard power either.

Besides under Putin Russian military budget increased significantly, power consolidation in domestic affairs and over rebel peripheries turned authoritarian, nationalist, and aggressive (see war in Chechnya and Georgia), Russian military projection overseas increased (in the Mediterranean Sea, Middle East and Africa), governmental cyberwarfare activities and “soft power” (by lobbying populist and anti-American info-war) in the West increased as well, ... — neomac

Yes. Great powers, even a small one like Russia, are often busy serving their interests militarily all over the globe. That's nothing new or special.

Whatever military build-up took place was nowhere near significant enough to pose any threat to Europe. After the fall of the Soviet Union it was only normal to expect some raise in military expenditure at some point, for a country as big as Russia with long borders and many potential flashpoints.

It is dwarfed by the actual military build-up we are seeing today, encouraged in part by the West's own actions.

Even Putin’s concerns for NATO enlargement were just words until they weren’t. — neomac

Russia acted the part as well. Concentrating troops and exercising near the border, letters of ultimatum, etc. and lets not forget they put forward a consistent message over the course of 15 years.

But when Trump says he wants to pull out of NATO, and the rest of America panics and starts yelling they have to secure their overseas alliances, such rhetoric has zero credibility. Only if it becomes consistent policy over several presidencies might it start to be seen as actually representing the geopolitical vision of the US foreign policy establishment.

And until the military special operations French and Germans didn’t seem much compelled by the US soft-power to change their attitude toward Russia, ... — neomac

Well yes, that may have been exactly the point.

The European leaders seem pretty naive and self-interested, but there are plenty of people smart enough to not assume the United States' benign intentions, so that reluctance will probably stay.

There is ultimately a limit to what United States influence can achieve, but there are historical examples aplenty of the United States leading countries willingly down the path of their own destruction.

Especially helpful for dummies like me. :lol:

Ah, I see.

In that case I would probably interject here:

( 10 ) A violation of bodily autonomy would only occur if a person's articulated preferences were neglected. — fdrake

To impose the cost of having to articulate one's preferences to avoid having one's body laid claim to seems baseless because of what I said earlier. The state has no right to the person's body, so no right to impose costs on the person for keeping the state the hell away from it.

In other words, I would consider any use of the body without articulated permission a violation of bodily autonomy.

( 2 ) Opt out organ harvesting is ethical. — fdrake

This is where I would disagree.

The person's body and the organs therein are no one's property to "harvest" after death. As much would imply the person's body is the property of the state, and it is simply for the duration that the person's soul occupies the body that it is lended to the person.

The totalitarian's gushing wet dream, of course. Only one step left to go, and that is to claim the soul also.

Why would the US care to protect the EU against a potential aggression from Russia? — neomac

Because Europe is home to a number of immensely powerful nations which are, united or seperately, essentially destined to play a big role in global affairs (most notably France and Germany).

Since WWII, the United States has controlled Europe through soft power. It bought influence for the cost of paying the lion's share of Europe's defense bill.

Such control over a large portion of the Heartland is extremely important to United States hegemony, at least if we are to follow Mackinder's and Brzezinski's ideas.

If the United States doesn't control Europe, it will either be controlled by another great power or possibly even turn into its own great power, which will inevitably find itself in conflict with the United States at one point or another.

Indeed, the US military presence in Europe has been declining for 30 years (which doesn’t fit well into the NATO expansion narrative). — neomac

That's no surprise. After the Cold War up until now there was virtually no military threat from Russia, so numbers of troops decreased while NATO was turned into an instrument to expand US influence through soft power.

Trump wanted to pull out the US from NATO. And Sarkozy declared NATO braindead. — neomac

Those are words, not actions.

Yet you cited Mearsheimer (along with Sachs and Chomsky) to support the idea that the US has provoked this war, didn’t you? And you did that to imply what exactly?
Whatever Russia claims to be “provocation” doesn’t mean that Russia had a right to invade Ukraine in international law terms.
Nor it can possibly mean that the US (or the West in general) should put Russia security concerns above or at the same level of the US (or the West in general) security concerns, if you want to talk about geopolitical strategy.
Nor it can possibly mean that different political administrations are morally bound to follow the same path/commitments toward third countries that previous administrations followed without considering geopolitical strategy (and third countries’ administrations!).
So what else does it mean exactly? — neomac

Oh wow. You completely missed the ball on that one if that's what you believe my arguments implied.

Can you spell it out? — neomac

I already did, in painstaking detail, multiple times over, and I can't be bothered to do so again. You can go back and read them yourself.

Concerning the logic of your argument, if the EU is more demilitarised than Russia, then EU is more military vulnerable to Russia. — neomac

Except that the EU has a military ally, the United States, which has the most powerful military in the world by a mile and a half. So no, Europe wasn't vulnerable, which is why they left their militaries to collect dust for decades.

I don’t see it that way. “Provocation” sounds weird in competitive games (even more dumb if one champions Mearsheimer’s “offensive realism”). — neomac

I don't think the EU's behavior can be explained through the lens of offensive realism.

I don't personally subscribe to any one way of viewing international politics, and it should be noted Mearsheimer often states that he believes his theories aren't right 100% of the time either.

Russia de-militarised prior to this conflict breaking loose?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1203160/military-expenditure-russia/ — neomac

Numbers mean little without context, and the context is that the Russia invaded Ukraine with 190,000 troops at the start of the invasion. For a gigantic country like Russia that is a very tiny force. With it they struggled to conquer and occupy even a few regions of Ukraine. It didn't come close to being a threat to NATO. They could double that, and it still wouldn't be.

Prior to this conflict most European armies were in shambles (for the most part they still are) and Russia was maintaining a small army relative to its size, and compared for example to the size of the armies of the Soviet Union.

“Peace talking” is always derailing your reasoning outside the power game “rules” you are trying to understand. — neomac

Hard to see what you mean by this.

Countries don't prefer to be at war. They prefer to be at peace. War is simply an inevitable consequence of the power structure states find themselves in.

When the status quo is resilient peace, there's no rational reason for states to disrupt that status quo simply because "those are the rules of the game".

So this might be a possible deterrent for Russia to engage in the eastern front. — neomac

I think it will have the exact opposite effect.

By inserting itself between Russia and one of its core strategic interests, the United States has guaranteed a permanent state of conflict (hot or cold) for as long as that situation persists.

Even if Crimea is the core in Russian geostrategic calculations, its annexation wouldn’t guarantee its security as it would if Ukraine was under Russian control (or at least, demilitarised). So the threat for Russia may still be serious enough to work as a deterrent. — neomac

Holding a nation's core strategic interests hostage will not work as a deterrent. It will ensure conflict permanently looms over the region, just like with Taiwan.

First, the Europeans are realising how delegating their own security to the US can be costly and risky as they never could before... — neomac

There seems to be little awareness within the European leadership that they and the United States have played a prominent role in provoking this conflict. The US is playing them for fools, because they largely are.

They've been given the illusion of importance and agency, but current US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland's words probably describe the United States' position vis-à-vis Europe the best: "F*CK the EU!"

It would be great if the Europeans started to realise this, but I see nothing of the sort.

Second, Europeans can profit from the weakening of Russian military capacity, ... — neomac

As we speak, Russia is massively expanding its military capacity.

Looking at Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine with 190,000 troops, what was there to fear, really? The Russian military was small and clearly not made for warfare against NATO.

We've given the Russians clear incentive to expand and modernize its military, even more so if it loses control over Crimea.

Ironically, how can we conclude anything other than the fact that Europe and Russia were quite de-militarized prior to this conflict breaking loose? And wasn't that something we should have fostered?

Europe profits (and has been profiting) from normal relations between Russia and the rest of Europe. But, as I have eluded to before, I don't think normal relations between Russia and Europe is what the Americans need in the coming great power struggle. It likes a divided Heartland.

Obviously as a general principle this is true to the point of being a truism, ... — Isaac

Just thought I'd drop it here because for whatever reason it still seems controversial to suggest that nations, including the United States, are primarily self-interested.

... it's not even clear that this war is in the US's interests (as a geopolitical unit). It seems more likely that it is very specific key sectors in America, and Europe, whose interests are served by a protracted Ukrainian war - namely arms manufacturing, reconstruction, finance, and gas/energy companies. The rest of the US seems just as prone to the economic downturn and shift to China that the war seems likely to bring, and all are at the same risk from escalation. — Isaac

I agree the military-industrial complex and other corporate interests could have serious influence, however for the United States to go to war with a nuclear-armed former great power while the conflict of the 21st century is looming on the other side of the world in East Asia, demands further explanation.

I don't think it's true to say that Ukraine are being 'rationally' used as a pawn of the US government. If there's a rational self-interest explanation, it would be that they are being 'rationally' used as a pawn of major industrial investment holders with the US government being merely a tool.

After all, all that lobbying money and share buybacks are not offered out of charity. — Isaac

I see your rationale, and I see the argument for the military-industrial complex benefitting of this war, however I struggle to see what economic prospects Ukraine will bring as it is being thoroughly wrecked.

Even if Ukraine wins an unlikely victory, Russia's significant strategic interests in the region will ensure it is the center of conflict for the foreseeable future and beyond.


Earlier in this thread I've tried to offer a geopolitical explanation for the United States' actions:

Since the United States cannot have been surprised by the Russian invasion and also does not seem overly committed to a Ukrainian victory, I am entertaining the hypothesis that the United States intentionally sought to provoke long-lasting conflict between Europe and Russia.

Europe and Russia were cozying up to each other too much, while it is in America's best interest to keep the Heartland divided.

With China and Russia in an alliance that was futher strengthened by the American push for Ukrainian incorporation into NATO, the Eurasian continent was basically already 2/3's united. There was an actual threat of the Heartland uniting completely - with Europe becoming apathetic towards the United States and fairly neutral towards Russia and China, and with Russia and China being markedly anti-American.

The war in Ukraine attempts to establish Europe as a committed American ally, and a counterbalance against Russia in case a large-scale security competition breaks out between the United States and Russia and China.

Far-fetched? Sober big-picture thinking? You be the judge.

The central "oddities" that I am trying to reconcile here are:
1. The United States knew its actions could result in a serious conflict with the Russians.
2. The United States does not seem fully committed to Ukrainian victory (so why provoke conflict?).
3. Given the current geopolitical situation with the threat of war between China and US allies in the Pacific, it couldn't have been the United States' intention to commit to a war in Eastern Europe for a long time.

So at the base I guess we agree that it's hard to see how the United States' interests are served by this war, but I'm not sure if something of this magnitude can be explained by corporate interests. I think it is simply too significant for that.

My point is that Ukraine may play a key role in the Western security system for future challenges, ... — neomac

Ok, but I have trouble reconciling this with page-long discussions about human rights, when you are now giving very straight-forward realist explanations for why Ukraine in NATO is useful to 'the West', which I think means primarily the United States. (And I don't disagree with those explanations. I think it makes good sense for the United States to instrumentalize any willing nation for its own goals.)

Being instrumentalized as a useful asset in great power competition in which, by the way, Ukraine is sitting in the front row, can hardly be considered beneficial to Ukraine though or am I missing something?

Certainly if past nations who found themselves in such a position are anything to go by, Ukraine is in big, big trouble for the foreseeable future.

Ukraine may offer plausible triggers to bend the NATO defensive alliance logic into an offensive operation, if needed. For the same reason, having Ukraine outside NATO has its risks for Russia too because it may keep re-militarised Europeans outside a direct confrontation (not military aid though) but it may also lead to some n-lateral military pact with Ukraine that is less than "defensive". — neomac

I honestly don't think any European nation fantasizes about invading Russia. They have no offensive capabilities to speak of.

The type of threats the Russians fear are probably more focused on economic and (geo)political strangulation - the type that a hostile Ukraine could have facilitated by cutting off Russia's access to the Black Sea.

I do not see any soft way to come out from this game. So either Europeans learn to be and act as a great power (a bit late for that) or they must suffer the great power initiative. — neomac

I don't believe the Russians had much incentive to pick a fight in Ukraine (let alone the rest of Europe) before the United States threatened to incorporate it. Even now the regions it occupies relate directly to their primary strategic interest - Crimea.

With Ukraine being neutral, Russia didn't have to fear the loss of Crimea. It was a stable situation.

If any tangible threat did exist, perhaps the proper reaction of the Europeans should have been to dust off their militaries instead of endlessly suckling on Uncle Sam's teet.

So yes, I agree nations must be prepared for conflict, especially in times like these. I don't agree the path the Europeans have chosen is in any way conducive to their own security.

I mean I could go on. Given the fact that this future great power conflict is likely going to take place between the United States and China, in the Pacific Ocean, on the other side of the world, what is the point of stirring up a conflict needlessly in Europe?

Now, my theory is that they didn't aim to keep Russia out (they wouldn't be able to), but to drag the Europeans in.

My understanding: Ukraine must be part of the West security system (inside or outside NATO may have pros/cons for Russia too!). Russia gave the West the justification on a golden plate. Ukraine (which is far more reliable then Turkey in containing Russia in that area) will be important later on, as soon as the military clash between the US and China materializes. To keep Russia out of it. — neomac

What I don't understand is that you seem aware of the probable realist motives behind the United States' actions - Ukraine being a bulwark to contain the Russians in a future great power conflict, etc. - and at the same time seem to believe that those same realist motives aren't going to see Ukraine and possibly all of Europe served up as the sacrificial pawns when that great power conflict breaks loose.

Ukraine is going to be, no, already is, on the frontline of that conflict. You, probably rightly so, foresee more conflict in our future.

When and how exactly is this decision to join NATO going to pay off?

Under these assumptions, wouldn't the smart course of action be to tell Uncle Sam to fight his own battles? That's certainly the course of action I would have proposed from the European point of view.

What the US strategy for incorporation of Ukraine into NATO has been so far, is to make Ukraine a de facto US/NATO ally (something they nearly achieved).

After that it's a matter of waiting until the time is right for further steps. Unless Russia invades in the mean time, of course.

As it happened, Russia invaded before the Ukrainian capacity to defend itself was such that the United States would commit to its defense fully, and that is unlikely to have been a coincidence.

Would it be worthwhile differentiating? (intentionally omitted "shoot on sight!") — jorndoe

In my opinion, no.

It's great for the individual speaker that their tongues are no longer being physically cut out, being thrown in jail, etc., but the intentions behind the action and the net result for the public are the same.

— Mearsheimer (paraphrased): Everyone should have known that Putin would have Russia attack Ukraine

— Others: Ukraine's defense and political dealings with the West ain't up to Putin to decide, and, besides, Ukrainian NATO membership wouldn't doom Russia to destruction (Feb24, Mar18, Apr26, May7, Jun10, Oct27), let alone a Russia without Crimea

— Cynic: Bah, it's all just rhetoric, entitlement, propaganda, manipulation by everyone — jorndoe

Mearsheimer's statement is clearly true. Not only have the Russians warned the West about Ukraine for over 15 years, the American establishment itself recognizes the incredible importance of Ukraine to Russia, and in its own continued bid for global dominance.

Influential political scientist and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has underlined how Ukraine is part of a global pivot area along the lines of Mackinder's Heartland-theory.

I've tried to draw attention to this earlier in this thread, but it was predictably ignored in favor of propaganda regurgitation and surface-level analysis.

Here's what Zbigniew had to say about the role of Eurasia in American geopolitical strategy:

For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.

About 75% of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for three-fourths of the world's energy resources.

- Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard (1997). p.30 - 31.


He argued principally that American dominance of Eurasia relied on control over pivot areas. Ukraine is a geopolitical pivot area, and such an area Zbigniew defines as follows:

Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location and from the consequences of their potentially vulnerable condition for the behavior of geostrategic players.

[...]

Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Turkey, and Iran play the role of critically important geopolitical pivots, though both Turkey and Iran are to some extent -- within their more limited capabilities -- also geostrategically active.

- Ibid. p. 41 - 42.

Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine can still strive for
imperial status, but it would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians, who would then be resentful of the loss of their recent independence and would be supported by their fellow Islamic states to the south.

- Ibid. p. 46.

Given the growing consensus regarding the desirability of admitting the nations
of Central Europe into both the EU and NATO, the practical meaning of this question focuses attention on the future status of the Baltic republics and perhaps also that of Ukraine.

- Ibid, p. 50 - 51.


On page 101 Brzezinski states that the US bid for NATO enlargement came too late in 1996, and should have come earlier, in 1993, when Russia was at its most powerless point. That's two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, after which the United States and Germany made solemn promises to Gorbachev not to expand NATO. Cynical, eh?

Further, Brzezinski underlines Russia's geostrategic vulnerability after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is important, because Russia has continually marked the matter of Ukraine as a security threat to them.

In brief, Russia, until recently the forger of a great territorial empire and the leader of an ideological bloc of satellite states extending into the very heart of Europe and at one point to the South China Sea, had become a troubled national state, without easy geographic access to the outside world and potentially vulnerable to debilitating conflicts with its neighbors on its western, southern, and eastern flanks. Only the uninhabitable and inaccessible northern spaces, almost permanently frozen, seemed geopolitically secure.

- Ibid. p. 96.


In his conclusion, Brzezinski writes the following:

How the United States both manipulates and accommodates the principal geostrategic players on the Eurasian chessboard and how it manages Eurasia's key geopolitical pivots will be critical to the longevity and stability of America's global primacy.

- Ibid. p. 194 - 195.

It follows that political and economic support for the key newly independent states is an integral part of a broader strategy for Eurasia. The consolidation of a sovereign Ukraine, which in the meantime redefines itself as a Central European state and engages in closer integration with Central Europe, is a critically important component of such a policy,

- Ibid. p. 203.


Anyone who understands the above paragraphs, understands.

The rest are just patzers.

In a recent interview with Jeffrey Sachs, he calls United States foreign policy a major threat to peace, and ascribes significant responsibility to the United States in provoking this conflict.

Obviously, he doesn't spare Russian or Ukrainian foreign policy either, but that kind of goes without saying. The important thing here is that the United States' role in this conflict is highlighted - an important aspect of this conflict which is completely voided by the mainstream media.

Note also a common theme among people who speak out against the narrative - they have to do so via independent platforms, because the establishment media simply will not allow them to talk.

We see this for Sachs, Mearsheimer, Chomsky, and a myriad of others whose messages are being purposely suppressed.

Not allowing people to speak is censorship, and omitting truth is propaganda. I hope people realize this is taking place in what were formerly known as civilized societies.

Certainly. I am morally opposed to any system that is based on the use and threat of violence. — Tzeentch

Apart from mercenaries, sociopaths, dictators, ..., I'd think most share the sentiment. — jorndoe

You'd be surprised. Most people readily support systems based on violence without batting an eye. It's so normal to them. Nation states would be one such system. Politics and the laws through which they operate are based on (threats of) violence. Without violence, there would be no law.

What does that translate to, though, in real life, social life? — jorndoe

Refraining from the use of violence or threats thereof.

Isn't this more of an objection to most political/societal systems, except anarchy (maybe)? — jorndoe

Certainly. I am morally opposed to any system that is based on the use and threat of violence.

So imagine someone is bombing the neighborhood where your family and friends live (some die a horrible death, others are severely injured or maimed), they lost where to live and all basic services in the neighborhood, some even jobs if working in the neighborhood, does anybody (you included) morally ought to do anything about it? — neomac

I don't think we necessarily have moral obligations to do things to other people, even if we think it is in their best interest.

But I would probably try to get them out of there, obviously.

Engage in dialogue, perhaps? If you're asking me if I ought to force people to abide by my principles, then obviously the answer is no.

Besides, you keep talking about “enormous cost” without giving any moral criteria to understand the moral relevance of such “enormous cost”. For example: exactly how many Ukrainian casualties count as morally relevant “enormous cost”? If Ukrainian casualties were 0.000001% of the population would it be an “enormous cost” in moral terms? How about 0.00001%, or 0.0001%, or 0.001%, or 0.01%, or 0.1%? On what moral grounds you choose that number? — neomac

I would consider even a single person dying against their will to be an enormous cost that was unjustly imposed, on the moral ground that no person has the right to tell another to give their life against their will, under any circumstance.

The term "war crimes" is being thrown around a lot, and it is regarded as established fact that "war crimes" are being committed.

I am not so sure however. War crimes are specifically breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) which consists of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the so-called Additional Protocols. I think on a forum like this it's important to be factual and use accurate language.

Of the war crimes I've seen the Russian government / Russian armed forces accused of, the one that seems believable to me is the possible torture of POWs - likely as part of interrogations.

I've seen little indication that the Russian army is indiscriminately slaughtering civilians. While that would certainly be a breach of IHL, when civilian casualties happen that is not immediately a war crime. Cities and infrastructure can be legitimate military targets, and when civilians die as a result of attacks on such targets, that might still be legitimate under IHL as long as its fundamental principles, one of which being "proportionality", are adhered to.

I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but for that we first need to establish what precisely a war crime is. I've tried to do this on multiple occasions in this thread, but as of yet to no avail it seems.

Somebody has to sit down, pore through the data, analyze it, and present to us their findings. Racism is a serious charge... — Agent Smith

And so, the accusation is quickly made, yet takes ages to refute.

Since there are more poor blacks than poor any-other-race [blame falls squarely on the shoulders of historical racism (slavery)], ... — Agent Smith

I think that is too simplistic.

The accumulation of intergenerational intellectual and physical wealth is a process that may take centuries, and that is under the best of circumstances.

For reasons that I cannot fully explain, most of the African continent has lagged behind in this regard when compared to places like Europe and the Far-East (China, Japan, etc.).

There was already very little intergenerational wealth build-up on most of the African continent, and slavery further damaged what little there was, basically starting the process anew in the Americas for those who were shipped there under slavery. That is only some 150 years ago. For reference, the colonists and their descendants easily had close to two millenia of heritage.

There's seems to be a lot of anger and resentment among certain demographics, and politics and media (aka Tweedledee and Tweedledum) seem very interested in feeding (and feeding off of?) this.

Nothing sells like outrage, and people love the feeling of indignation, especially when it makes them feel absolved of all blame. We've seen this during covid, the Ukraine war, climate, and race politics are no exception to that.

But perhaps you are the type who either puts someone on a pedestal and agrees everything what they say and damns them others the lowest hell and avoids everything they say as the plague. At least that I'm getting from you... — ssu

Ah, right.

Your first accusation failed - accusing me of basing my views only on "truth teller" Mearsheimer - which I thoroughly debunked.

So now you have to find some new accusation to latch onto.

I'm not going to play this game with you.

And your view is largely irrelevant, as people understand that this war started from the annexation of Crimea and the separatism in the Donbas area in 2014. — ssu

Ah, so people like Mearsheimer, Chomsky, Sachs, etc., what are they in your view? A bunch of dummies? Kremlin propagandists? Their views are irrelevant, because...? Because they don't conform to your world view, I imagine?