First, you completely ignore that obviously Russia's offer before the invasion even took place would require no withdrawal.

Had Ukraine accepted neutrality before the war, the war may not have happened, and Russia may not have seen enough sufficient cause to invade given the main point of contention was resolved. — boethius

And again it's an entirely unsubstantiated claim that russia would have accepted a simple pledge of neutrality. Various Ukrainian governments have expressed their willingness to accept neutrality in principle.

In other words, Donetsk and Lugansk would not be annexed by Russia and there's no mention of the other regions Russia occupied in the demands as Russia would be giving them back in such a deal. — boethius

This does not follow. Russia had already decided at that point to annex the "independent" republics, there was a rather humourous episode where a Russian official apparently switched their scripts and argued in favour of a request (as of then nonexistent) to join the RF before the republics had even been recognised by Russia.

Nor would the deal in any way obligate Russia to not demand further territory in subsequent peace negotiations. All they offered here was to halt their operations.

the correct move for Ukraine would be to make a counter offer that explicitly clarifies those points. Which Ukraine never does — boethius

You yourself quoted the 15 point plan that was the Ukrainian counteroffer.

after Boris Johnson flies to Ukraine to convince Zelensky to not make peace). — boethius

Baseless speculation.

Had Ukraine done that, clarified the points you are now equivocating on, and the Russia clearly refused such a peace deal; ok — boethius

Russia has repeatedly restated their goals to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine. Why are you not accepting their own words?

Obviously there were chances to negotiate peace at various times leading up to and during the conflict, starting with the Minsk accords, the main point of contention being NATO, and Ukraine consistently chooses to push for joining NATO rather than entertain accepting neutrality.

The war happens. If Ukraine can't win, and instead loses and significant amount of Ukrainians are killed, Ukraine depopulated through people fleeing the conflict, and the economy destroyed and furthermore far more of the coveted territory is lost in battle, clearly those opportunities for peace were preferable, and trying to join NATO did not help Ukraine one bit (just a provocation based on some foolish principle of "having the right to ask to join a club that doesn't want you" without any benefit whatsoever). — boethius

You're welcome to your opinions, but they seem far removed from reality to me.

What does it matter if Russian terms were even worse for Ukraine than what seemed to me, everyone on the forum, and the mainstream Western media, if your interpretation is correct ... but Ukraine loses anyways? — boethius

Stop lying through your teeth.

Because demanding sources of points that you don't honestly disbelieve is just bad faith. — boethius

My main interest is pointing out obvious falsehoods and inconsistencies for the benefit of others. It's quite clear you will not budge one inch whatever I say.

That's exactly how it works: imprisonment within Ukrainian territory and forced conscription to be forced into military service (i.e. taking away people's right to self determination for themselves) in the name of self determination for the "glorious nation". — boethius

The right to self determination doesn't apply to individuals and is generally fulfilled so long as there is some effective form of representation for the people, i.e. the ethnic or cultural group (as a whole) in question

you offer zero citations or evidence or even plausible arguments. — boethius

Well since we haven't talked about it before, it wasn't necessary. Perhaps you'd just have agreed. But here is the overview of the timeline from Wikipedia . Anything specific you take issue with?

Separatism is based on extra-legal moral principles, — boethius

I have zero interest in discussing morality with you, so I'll stick to the international law.

Again, zero sources, which immediately following demanding sources for me to 100% clarify the sources I already cited, is extreme bad faith.

If you don't want to bring your own sources to the table, then it's complete idiocy to demand others provide sources (on-top of the sources they've already provided). — boethius

Sourcing things isn't some kind of weird dick measuring contest. I'm asking you for sources for specific claims, because those claims are false as far as I can see.

What exactly is it you take issue with? I can provide sources for the movements of Igor Girkin if you want.

Again, just inventing things that would be convenient if it were true.

Are you just repeating myths that circulate in "pro-Ukrainian" echo-chambers on Reddit or Facebook and simply assuming they must be based on "something" or do you just do cursory research to get a vague impression of what you're looking for? — boethius

You yourself posted the Reuters report. It said Russia would "halt military operations".

That is what you have offered regarding the russian proposal. Noone doubts the ukrainian proposal involves Russia retreating.

And, obviously, the Russian offer before the war would have occurred without any Russian forces outside of Crimea. — boethius

An offer which we also do not know.

You're also directly contradicting the Reuters article I cited, which clearly describes an offer that it not a ceasefire in place, — boethius

Halting your military operations is a ceasefire.

"Everyone" in the context refers to members of the forum commenting on events and also mainstream media, such as Reuters. But, even so, can you even provide evidence of "someone" understanding the Russian offer different at the time? — boethius

Why would I need to do that? It's your claim not mine.

Again, just thinking backwards to making things up that would be convenient to be true.

"Everyone" in the context refers to members of the forum commenting on events and also mainstream media, such as Reuters. But, even so, can you even provide evidence of "someone" understanding the Russian offer different at the time? — boethius

I'm doubting the analysis says what you claim it does.

Where do you get that Russia was only ever offering a ceasefire in place? Especially before the 2022 war even occurred? — boethius

This is not a claim I'm making. I'm saying what you quoted describes a ceasefire in place.

Sure, but that is simply agreeing to the main point of contention here: that whatever terms Ukraine was offered, it would have been better to accept compared to losing the war — boethius

That is moving the goalposts a fair bit. You have consistently claimed that Ukraine would have been better off accepting the deal on offer early in the war, rather than keep fighting. That's a very different argument.

The problem Ukraine gets into is that it repudiates negotiations and commits itself to achieving a better negotiation position by military means. — boethius

And this, according to you, is somehow a bad thing?

Russia obviously can demand this, and NATO could agree to it and likewise Ukraine could agree to it. — boethius

Right, they could, but NATO would take a serious hit to its international standing, while leaving Ukraine out in the cold.

I understand you'd hand Russia the keys to the city and the nuclear codes too, if it'd avoid a war, but that is your opinion.

Most previous wars were at least fought over what countries did actually possess before the war started. — boethius

I think you missed the part where Russia annexed significant parts of Ukraine. But I guess the west forced them to do that.

It's not easy at all, first language and cultural repression and shelling the separatists are crimes against humanity committed by overt Nazi's — boethius

If you want to be taken seriously, it'd help if you didn't just repeat russian propaganda. There was no Nazi oppression of Donbas.

but second it is a completely legitimate political action to seek separation after the coup in 2014. — boethius

It's not. There's no recognised right to separation under international law and you haven't made any moral case either.

and I honestly don't see much of a problem waging a war against said Nazi's. — boethius

You cannot wage a war against some political group in another country, and in any event that's not what happened.

But even without the Nazi's, if Ukraine has a right to self-determination so too the separatists. — boethius

Not under current international law.

Who doesn't have a right to self determination is all the Ukrainian men that cannot leave Ukraine and can be forced to fight by the government ... and why? To protect the right of self determination of Ukraine? — boethius

That's not how any of this works.

Or are you saying they lacked popular legitimacy in the Donbas ? — boethius

Yes. The organic separatist movements in the Donbas were very localised and nothing really got off the ground until mercenaries arrived from Crimea. Even then the separatists quickly fizzled out in most areas apart from a few strongholds - notably Donetsk city.

The separatists clearly have a right to self defence and if that requires asking Russia for help and Russia wrecking the rest of Ukraine to protect the separatists, seems perfectly legal to me. — boethius

I have no doubt it seems that way to you, but it is not legal. You cannot declare yourself a separatist and ask your neighbour to invade. It should be obvious why.

The social contract of being in a larger political unit is that the rules are followed. A president was elected to Ukraine and the rules are the president has certain powers and serves a certain term; those rules aren't followed, social contract is broken, perfectly reasonable and legitimate (and therefore just cause) to then secede from an illegitimate national government. — boethius

That might be an interesting question in the abstract but it is not what happened. Most of the unrest in Donbas coincided not with the Euromaidan but with the seizure of Crimea. It was also short lived until Igor Girkin, a Moscow born russian, started taking over cities with a band of mercenaries.

The justification for wrecking Libya was that civilians "might" be shelled. — boethius

And look how well that turned out.

Ukraine was anyways in the separatist regions territory, if Ukraine was of good will about the accords (and had the sense to want to avoid a larger war with Russia) then they would have withdrawn to positions where clashes were no longer possible — boethius

Ah yes more excellent advice from boethius. Just retreat. What's the worst that can happen?

You're claim was that offers in serious negotiations aren't made public, to support your previous claim that "we don't know much about" the negotiations and what, if anything, Russia was offering, which you now just casually move the goal posts to this entirely new claim, that basically it maybe unwise to make your position public. — boethius

This is an insipid and pointless sideshow.

You have claimed Russia offered to retreat to the February 2022 starting points in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality. It's upon you to provide evidence of this, which so far you haven't done.

I ultimately don't care one way or the other whether you believe diplomatic negotiations happen in public.

I addressed this in the beginning. Given any theory of truth, whether it assumes the truth criterion is a metaphysical representation or otherwise, its conception and operation depends on a mind. — Sirius

Right, but if only the evaluation of a truth depends on a mind, then it doesn't follow that necessary truths also necessitate a mind.

Ask yourself. Does it make sense to say X statement was always true, but it never always existed. How can a statement be true and not exist ? And if a true statement an an evaluation must exist, it will exist in a mind — Sirius

It does make sense, but it does also easily get confusing. The problem imho is that you're adding another meta layer. Now we're taking about the statement about the statement about X. Obviously if you make a statement about a statement the latter must already exist. But this doesn't tell us that it must always have existed.

True statements are a mental evaluation, but what they represent isn't. A mindless world may have truths, but we cannot speak of them, which is no different from not having any truths.

Let's suppose there is no God. We can do without him actually.

Was "Big bang just occurred" a true statement when the big bang occurred ? Here is the tricky part. We can say it is a true statement from an evaluation in our time w.r.t the time when the big bang occurred, but it involves us taking our mind to the time when the big bang occurred CONCEPTUALLY. But even if we didn't exist, It is neccesary condition for this universe that there be a mind in the relative distant future which can evaluate the conditions of the past when there were no minds.

How is this possible ? — Sirius

Well it's possible because this universe is the one with humans in it. This is an application of the anthropic principle. From the perspective of a mind experiencing their universe, that universe must necessarily contain the conditions for minds to exist.

There could be a universe where that isn't the case, but we wouldn't be experiencing it.

As you know from special relativity, the past/present/future exists on the same ontological plane. So when the big bang occurred, we were thinking of it having occurred in the future from the refrence of big bang. But even if we didn't exist, there must have been someone in the future who was thinking of the big bang. As we have eliminated God, we will need to take this universe to be infinite to have all the minds represent the infinitely many true mathematical statements and have them evaluated.

To sum it up, the existence of a mind is a neccesary condition for the existence of neccesarily logical truths, but not a sufficient condition. — Sirius

The big bang is a human concept though, so as such it only exists in a universe that has humans (eventually).

And saying that there are infinitely many true mathematical statements to be evaluated seems to be at odds with your position that truth is created by evaluation. Since the statements don't all already exist, they're merely indefinite, not infinite.

I never claimed all contingent truths must exist, only logically neccesary truths. I have already given reasons why mathematical truths can not depend on material representation ( refuting logicism ) — Sirius

What does it mean for truths to exist? Are truths metaphysically real "states of affairs"? Or are they constructions of a particular mind?

If a statement is logically neccesary, then it exists irrespective of whether there is a physical world or not, since it isn't about the physical world. — Sirius

This does not make sense to me. The content of a statement doesn't change its ontological status.

Here is a proof of the existence of neccesarily logically true statements and a mind :

Definition :

Existence for neccesarily true statements means "X is neccesarily" exists as an evaluation.

If it doesn't, then we can't say "X is neccesarily true", but X is neccesarily true, so an evaluation neccesarily exists. But if an evaluation neccesarily exists, a mind neccesarily exists for the evaluation. — Sirius

This proof only works conceptually if truths are the results of evaluation, which is to say truths are (mental) constructs.

But this means also that necessary truths only ever exist for specific minds, and a mindless world has no truths, necessary or otherwise. So a mindless world is perfectly self consistent, and necessary truths only arise for specific minds.

Well that would the the utilitarian perspective. My problem with that is that "improving our lives" is subjective and utilitarianism doesn't itself provide any framework to reconcile the different positions people might have on "the greater good". Hence I prefer the deontological approach.

I would still say that the purpose of moral philosophy is to make the world better, just not in the sense of trying to optimise any particular metric.

If your enemy isn't abiding by the Geneva Conventions, why should you? Does a nation have a moral duty to take the "high ground" in a conflict? — RogueAI

Generally, nations are not moral subjects, individuals are.

But yeah I'd say you have the moral duty to take the high ground, always and in every situation. That is
what moral philosophy is ultimately about, isn't it? To have a framework that applies over and above what your current desires or interests are.

If we can throw it by the wayside when it doesn't suit us, why have it in the first place?

Even if it increases their chances of losing the conflict? What about if their existence is truly at stake? — RogueAI

Morality in war is a tricky business, especially since there's not necessary a good argument to treat your enemy at large differently than your allies. You might have taken extra obligations towards your allies, but those could hardly result in your enemies having less moral standing.

I think we would need to employ the logic of self defense, expanded to groups since against an organised attacker, only an organised defense could succeed. And in that context we could argue that, in a justifiable cause, one does not need to accept undue risks. Since those that are fighting for the aggressor have by this act placed themselves outside the moral framework themselves, and thus cannot demand for themselves it's full protection.

But it's a difficult argument to carry forward without contradiction, as obviously not all victims of war really chose to be on either side in a meaningful way.

If the Axis had used chemical weapons, wouldn't the Allies have been justified using them in retaliation? — RogueAI

I think you could make the case that a counterattack is justified if it has a plausible military objective that you judge you could not meet any other way.

Or suppose Germany had gone through with Sea Lion and invaded Britain after the fall of France. Would the Brits have been justified in using gas against the German invaders? Doesn't the British high command have a duty to its people to fight a Nazi invasion with every means at their disposable? If the British generals decide that chemical weapons will give them a decisive edge against Nazi soldiers, don't they have a duty to use those chemical weapons in defense of their citizens? — RogueAI

They probably have that duty, but I do think they'd also have to weigh their duty towards humanity in general, which even includes the enemy soldiers.

If the use of a gas weapon provides the decisive edge, and you have also considered the probable long term consequences, maybe such use could be justified. At the same time we can probably conclude that lobbing gas grenades at starving and undersupplied Germans who are barely holding their perimeter might be a step too far.

Can you point out the specific flaw. Saying the conclusion doesn't follow isn't helpful. — Sirius

The content of a statement is mental content. This includes the "truth" of the statement, or the truth evaluation.

But not all possible statements already exist. You would need to show that the statement about the necessary truth also necessarily exists.

It doesn't follow from any of this that any particular statement (concerning a necessary truth or something else) necessarily exists.

4. All neccesarily true statements exist as cognitive content (from 1,2) — Sirius

How does it follow from your premises that the statements (already) exist?

I've provided accounts of the people directly involved, accounts of people indirectly involved, — Tzeentch

Which either did not say what you claim they did or merely noted their "impressions"

reports by prominent UN and NATO representatives, etc. — Tzeentch

"Prominent" as in claim to have worked for them in the past. Posting their views on some obscure blog, quoting themselves.

This is why you're not taken seriously. You don't seem to realize that reality won't budge any further to accomodate your narrative. — Tzeentch

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

This is why discussion with you oompa loompas is pointless. — Tzeentch

You could simply provide evidence of your claim.

This was Russia's offer as reported at the time. — boethius

Russia's offer was a ceasefire in place.

But that's just straight up rewriting history. Everyone at the time understood the Russian offer to be pulling their troops back to Russia and Crimea if the offer was accepted. — boethius

No, they didn't.

There was huge amount of analysis at the time; — boethius

Then no doubt you can provide relevant evidence.

the three main points are neutrality, recognizing Crimea and some sort of status change in Donbas (but not integration into Russia, which has happened since if you haven't noticed). — boethius

And these are their demands for a ceasefire.

but it was understood Russia was offering to pull their troops from the rest of Ukraine including the Donbas (it's not really a "retreat" if it's part of a peace agreement). — boethius

No, that was not understood. You seem to be confusing a ceasefire with a peace treaty.

which is that Ukraine had far more leverage to try to negotiate the best deal they could ever get back then compared to now. A point you don't seem to agree with. — boethius

Correct.

it strengthens your diplomatic position to accept an offer that is then reneged on — boethius

Unless you had already made concessions and got nothing in return. As would have been the case in this scenario.

Well then, what "good news" do you even see in even mainstream Western media? — boethius

Russian offensive capabilities don't seem to have markedly improved, so they seem unable for now to do more than grind forward at a snail's pace.

Well, at the time, the West was framing this as giving Putin what he wants rather than punishing him for breaking the "rules based order" over annexing Crimea and the West refused to negotiate directly with Russia to try to come to a larger deal over European security architecture as a whole and so on. — boethius

Which is a reasonable position to take generally, western hypocrisy notwithstanding.

For a while talking heads and social media were continuously repeating that "Ukraine has a right to join NATO" and that "Russia can't demand Ukrainian neutrality as Ukraine is a sovereign nation" as justification for repudiating any peace agreement, which are absolutely moronic points — boethius

The argument was that Russia cannot demand that western nations bar Ukraine's NATO entry.

We can come back to this point, as no one so far as actually provided an argument of why the Ukrainian cause is just. — boethius

But that's relatively easy. They're fighting an aggressor who violated their undisputed borders repeatedly (and who also has a treaty obligation to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine), and they have not committed any kind of crime against humanity which might in extreme cases justify a war of aggression.

one has answered the question of how many Nazi's in Ukraine would be too many Nazi's — boethius

Well I'm glad to hear people here had enough sense not to.

explain why the Donbas separatist cause is not just on exactly the same grounds as the Ukrainian cause of "self determination — boethius

Separatism is a thorny issue at the best of times, and the Donbas separatists lack any convincing popular legitimacy.

even if we ignore that issue then why shelling civilians was justified — boethius

Even if it wasn't, it was not remotely significant enough to be cause for an invasion.

reneging on the Mink accords was justified. — boethius

At the least Russia also failed to implement it's obligations under Minsk.

What are you talking about? Offers in serious negotiations can and often are made public. Making an offer public can put further pressure on the counter-party if the offer is clearly reasonable to take, — boethius

Or it can blow up the negotiations because now one side is compelled to accuse the other of lying to avoid fatally compromising their position. It's a dangerous game to play.

Russia's conditions for a peace settlement were made public — boethius

You seem to have ommitted the part where you show Russia's pledge to retreat and return all territory, (which would include the parts of Donetsk & Luhansk not occupied prior to the 2022 invasion).

This is exactly what "the West" (officials, mainstream media, zillions of commenters on social media) was insisting on, that any peace (in which Putin keeps Crimea and Ukraine accepts neutrality, which was the only deal the Russians would consider accepting) would be a win for Russia: they wanted Ukraine neutral, they want recognition of Crimea by Ukraine, so if they get that then they "win". — boethius

Sure, a win, but a relatively minor one which offers no long term strategic advantage to Russia.

My diagnosis of your philosophical disease is that you've, until now, happily swallowed what Western media was selling you about this war — boethius

I have a pro-Ukraine bias, but I do try to avoid looking away when bad news for Ukraine surface.

their cause must be just — boethius

Their cause is just.

If Russia's offer was "not quite good enough" ... then why don't we have a Reuters citation of Ukraine's counter-offer, such as neutrality and keeping the Donbas with more limited cultural protections for Russian speakers (since that's important for "some reason")? — boethius

Actual offers in serious diplomatic negotiations are not made public, much less when actual lifes are at stake. Sure Ukraine could publish the offers made, but then why would we believe Ukraine was telling the full truth, and any such move could jeopardize further negotiations.

However, the main issue is not "what exactly" Russia was offering, but that Ukraine walks away from negotiating, makes absurd ultimatums public and so on, rather than strive to get the best deal they can when they have maximum leverage. — boethius

I guess we'll have to trust their judgement on when they have "maximum leverage" for now. The war isn't over.

The fact is there was a peace deal on the table in March / April, in which Ukraine reneged on their plans to join NATO, and Russia returned all the territory it occupied at that time. This deal was blocked by the US and Britain. — Tzeentch

That's not a fact, it's a wild flight of fantasy.

The deal was blocked because the US knew it would be seen as a Russian victory. — Tzeentch

Of course, Russia camped his force on Ukraine's border for months, then invades, looses men and materiel, gets absolutely nothing in return but the US blocks it because it'd "be seen as a russian victory".

This is a good point. You’re forgetting two things, though: first, I’m not trying to justify Russia’s actions. In fact I’ve condemned them all along. I think it’s both morally wrong and strategically stupid, as they’ve now pushed even more countries into the hands of the US. — Mikie

That's fair. But I do think it changes the moral judgement a fair bit whether we think of the US invasion of Iraq as a misguided and ultimately tragically counterproductive attempt at fighting terrorism or as a cynical move to exploit a tragedy in order to reshape the middle east according to the US' geopolitical interests.

For similar reasons, it does rankle me if Putin is called a "reactive leader" in this context for, even if it's not meant to exculpate him, it seems to nevertheless distract from the fact that had he not given the order, thousands victims of this war would be alive today (though this is ultimately tangential to our discussion).

Secondly, when analyzing the justification given by the aggressor state, you look at the evidence. The justification for invading Iraq (connections to 9/11, weapons of mass destruction, etc) turned out to be completely bogus. And the goal wasn’t to conquer Iraq anyway. The actual reason, in my view, was economic.

So in Russia’s case, is there any evidence that NATO is a major factor? Yes, there is. Doesn’t make it correct or rational. Furthermore, it doesn’t make it the only cause. — Mikie

Sure, it's a different case with different facts. The analogy only goes so far.

Mostly what I'm interested in at this point isn't debating an individual point - we have tried that at length. But I do (obviously) also think I'm looking at the evidence.

You're drawing a direct line from NATO expansion to the war of Ukraine. I'm saying at some point in the 2000s the line entered a bundle of causes we might label "Russian resentment towards the west", which ended up one of the causes of the war. These views aren't really fundamentally opposed. I'm not saying "no actually, there really were WMDs in Iraq".

I think it's more useful to understand Putin's decision as an expression of his geopolitical goals. The include keeping Ukraine neutral, but they also go much beyond that.

Saying the US invaded Iraq because the US is evil and George Bush is a madman wouldn’t be a strong argument. Likewise, rejecting that thesis wouldn’t justify the actual (well supported) reasons. — Mikie

From where I sit, only a madman would have thrown Russia's entire available armed forces at Ukraine if they did not intend for this to result in a seismic geopolitical shift in their favour. Neutrality for Ukraine for some indefinite period doesn't strike me as such a shift.

The Gulf War campaign had about a million coalition troops. The Iraqi Army was no longer considered nearly as well supplied or competent in 2003. Sanctions and the collapse of the USSR as an arms provider had crippled their military, as had a decade of a US enforced no fly zone. During the Gulf War, the US essentially defacto partitioned a whole third of Iraq, which was under Kurdish control and rule after. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I confess I have not really looked into this in detail. I checked the troop dispositions for Iraq out of curiosity and noticed that they didn't actually seem in an entirely different ballpark (only looking at the initial invasion force). The comparison is flawed in many ways, and yet I don't think it's entirely out of the question that Russian commanders also looked at the US invasion in Iraq as a model for their planned campaign.

Another comparison might be Vietnam. South Vietnam had about half the population of Ukraine but the SVA and US forced for COIN operations there peaked at 1.4 million.

However, in general, the size of military deployments has been decreasing. Modern warfare has shown a definite trend towards quality beating quantity. Military hardware is significantly more expensive when adjusting for inflation than during WWII and soldiers now require more training.

Russia's invasion was largely predicated on the prediction that Ukraine's would collapse. The low troop numbers represent Russia's (over)confidence in this collapse, over confidence in the effectiveness of bribes they had paid to Ukrainian leaders, corruption (they thought they had more men than they did, there have been multiple trials over under strength formations and "ghost soldiers"), and general poor planning skills, more than anything relative to their war aims IMO. That and their relative inability to mobilize and support a much larger force. After all, they couldn't support the men they went in with. Having more unsupported columns wouldn't have helped them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No disagreement here. One can say the russian invasion forces were much too small, yet on paper they still represented one of the most formidable forces in the world. The number of nations who could have assembled something similar is small.

I'd rather call it pro-Russian propaganda. Indeed, these people have no problems to whine over American imperialism EVEN WHEN American didn't "conquest" anything. While refrain from talking about Russian imperialism when the territorial conquest actually happens before they eyes while they are denying it. The intellectual misery is cosmic. — neomac

I would rather turn this around and point out that @Mikie and presumably also the other posters would never accept this kind of argument If we were talking about an US invasion.

They'd scoff at the notion that the US didn't intend to "conquer" Iraq but only to fight terrorism. If we tried to argue that the US had no imperialist ambitions in Iraq and merely reacted to "reasonable security concerns", that really the "most direct cause" of the invasion was the alignment of Iraq with the supporters of radical Islam, they'd laugh us out of the room.

The invasion of Iraq is also an interesting analogy as far as the numbers are concerned. The population of Iraq is 43 million. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq had a large army that was considered relatively modern and effective. Yet the initial invasion forces also numbered "only" some 160.000.

If, for some wild reason, the invasion had failed, would we now be talking about how the US couldn't possibly have intended to conquer Iraq, since clearly it didn't have the troops?

There were other reasons for invasion. Conquest wasn’t one of them. — Mikie

Except for the parts of Ukraine actually conquered and annexed, right?

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

Right, fair enough. We could also say his legitimacy was forged in a war. War, or perhaps we should be more neutral and call it direct military action, has worked for Putin.

Supposedly he was chosen because he demonstrated that he was corrupt, so Yeltsin, who was also corrupt, believed Putin wouldn't prosecute him for his crimes. War increased his power? — frank

Well I'm sure the word Putin would use is not "corrupt" but "loyal". But yes that is what I read as well, and also that he was a bit of a blank slate politically. Noone knew what he really stood for. At the time, he might have simply been considered an interim solution. Someone not offensive, who would make sure the Yeltsin family got off free, and then make way for someone with more of a political profile. But Putin quickly made his mark by taking a hardline stance on Chechnya and is to this day suspected of having orchestrated terror attacks to have a pretext for a second Chechen war. That brought him into his own as a political figure in his own right.

Another allegation is that Putin was essentially always a KGB trojan horse, who played the role of the loyal vassal long enough to get into power, and then started to enact the kind of policies his KGB clique had wanted to employ since the days of the USSR.

Do note that all this is based on somewhat hazy rememberings on books I read / listened to. So it's quite possible I muddled something, Perhaps @Jabberwock can correct any glaring mistakes, since they seem knowledgeable.

Just do armchair speculation. Good enough. :up: — Mikie

Are you doing your speculation from a footstool? If so, you should upgrade!

He rose to power originally by starting a war. More war would pull the country behind him? — frank

That's not quite true, Putin was elevated to power by the Jelzin family. But his success in the second Chechen war did much to secure his rule.

I think if the invasion was just a land grab, Putin's timing is a little strange. Why wouldn't he have done that a few years earlier when Trump was president of the US? Trump would have cheered him on. — frank

But that would have damaged trump, possibly beyond repair. Which would probably have not been in Russia's interest. Or Putin might have considered the west especially weak in the wake the COVID pandemic. Also possible is that Putin intended his invasion in 2020, coinciding with political turmoil in the US, but COVID stopped that plan. In the early days of COVID, some estimates had the mortality way higher than it actually was.

Waiting until Biden, a hawk, to become president, makes it seem that he wanted to engage the US military somehow. — frank

Putin seems to have overestimated the strength of his military, but I doubt he overestimated it by that much.

Since he also declared some sort of new world order after the invasion, indicating that the US was no longer in charge of global affairs, it seems like he thought he was going to easily conquer Ukraine and flaunt this win in spite of Biden's public threat to punish Russia for interfering in US elections. — frank

Something along these lines. Deal US prestige a crushing blow, demonstrating it's weakness as an ally, while restoring Russia's great power status and cementing his reputation in Russia.

What's not to like? But it was not to be.

In other words, I don't believe the invasion was about NATO, but I think it may have partly been about demonstrating Russian military strength and simultaneously demonstrating that US supremacy was over. He just miscalculated his own military capability? — frank

Arguably, he had some reason to overestimate his chances for success. In Georgia the russian forces did poorly, but were overall successful and western reactions were muted. In Ukraine in 2014, russian forces were spectacularly successful and Ukraine was even briefly staggered by a ragtag bunch of mercenary "separatists". The western reaction was less muted, but still far from unified and effective.

Taken together Putin might well have assumed that his military would pull off a blitzkrieg campaign so shocking that the Ukrainian military would be unable to respond, while the west would look on helplessly and just pile on some more toothless sanctions.

The russian military isn't some incompetent bunch of conscripted farmers, as pro Ukrainian propaganda sometimes suggested. They had much improved from their nadir in the first Chechen war. But apparently they, like some many others before them, did not sufficiently account for the effect of determined resistance aimed at their logistics and c&c.

“The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition to not invade Ukraine. Of course, we didn't sign that.

The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second-class membership. We rejected that.

So, he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.”

Yeah and Austria-Hungary went to war to get a proper investigation of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Well then we're probably in agreement that Israel's stated intention to not occupy Gaza likely means things will be much worse for whoever is left there, since it seems to imply Israel will destroy all the "Hamas infrastructure" (which probably means just all all the infrastructure) and then just leave.

I’ll just quote Mearsheimer, who said it best over a year ago: — Mikie

Is it at all plausible to you that this argument from Mearsheimer is only convincing if you happen to already agree with it?

but fortunately I do so I'm happy to dissect all the myths that cloud and manipulate your judgement. — boethius

Charming.

why the Russian offer was a reasonable one for Ukraine to take (of course trying to negotiate as many further concessions as possible, and not only from Russia but the EU as well). — boethius

The russian offer which we ultimately know very little about.

Ukraine did negotiate. The best source on the early negotiations, Naftali Bennet, has said he saw a 50/50 chance of a deal being made.

So the entire argument that the west has cynically manipulated Ukraine to dismiss negotiations rests on - at best - coin toss odds for an acceptable ceasefire agreement.

You can of course say you'd have taken your chances, but the case for manipulation under these circumstances is very weak.

So, to dress up US involvement in Ukraine leading up to the war as simply naive do-gooding, — boethius

Which noone is doing.

and encourage Ukraine to continue fighting and repudiate negotiations and make absurd ultimatums (such as the negotiation can happen after Russia leaves all of Ukraine), — boethius

We're leaving out the fact that Ukrainians make decisions too again.

is simply living in a delusional mythical echo chamber (that you so happily fill with noise with your fellow US sycophants whenever critical voices are absent from the thread for even a day). — boethius

Pot, meet kettle.

I post RAND's report — boethius

You just fail to account for developments since. Because Ukraine did not collapse quickly, and it did not end up in a significant strategic defeat for the US.

You do not seem to have this view, but rather share my view that policy should be based on (in not entirely, then with strong consideration for) reduction of harm — boethius

But, crucially, I believe that the people who decide what harm they're willing to accept are the Ukrainians. Who, it bears repeating, have decided to fight this war knowing full well their chances.

Now, if we agree on the moral fundamentals, then it doesn't seem even up for debate of what the purpose of Western policy has been leading up to the war ("extend" Russia at great risk and peril to Ukraine) and what the Western policy has been during the war (fight Russia to the last Ukrainian ... but not escalate more than that and risk Russia using Nukes). — boethius

Part of my moral fundamentals is that people are responsible for their actions, and that decisions are made by real people with real interests and not abstract forces.

Noone forced Russia's hand. Noone forced Ukraine's. We can discuss influence, but I reject any theory that refuses to take account of the basic reality that Putin could simply not have given the order to invade, while Zelensky (or any number of Ukrainian soldiers) could have simply refused to fight.

These were choices made, not expressions of the will of the US.

1. why does such a disastrous policy (at least for Ukraine, if not for the West) get put into place in the first place despite warnings directly from RAND that Ukraine have little chance of "winning" and that their losing will be a significant loss of US prestige and power — boethius

We'd have to look at specific decisions being made.

2. how best to end the war now, and — boethius

Why would I take your positions on that seriously given rhetoric like this:

understanding how the myth building works and fools people such as yourself into believing that disastrous policy is either somehow necessary or then at least "hearts were in the right place". — boethius

Why not just talk to the mirror?

The focus on criticizing Western policy by us critical Westerners in this thread, is because we are Westerners and citizens of countries that are part of the Western institutions organizing the policies in question as well as directly participating in sending arms and thoughts and payers. — boethius

I'm not criticising the focus, I'm criticising the quality of the analysis.

Despite various statements to the contrary, and claims to nuance, the analysis is imho marred by an overreliance on overarching historical "forces" with little account made of the actual people who make decisions and the various ways in which the conflict has shifted.

How can NATO-expansion be the same issue in 1995 and 2022 despite a vastly different situation in eastern Europe? Why does it not matter that Putin already invaded Ukraine in 2014, annexed part of it's territory and created a frozen conflict? Why are we ignoring the different ways in which EU leaders have had their hand in matters, perhaps most importantly the two German chancellors, Schröder and Merkel?The situation might have been very different without a German government as friendly to Russia.

Ukrainian interests, too, seem frozen. Ukraine's internal divisions are cited, but the various changes in their position are not. The US involvement in the 2014 revolution (or coup if you prefer) is loudly touted, but russian moves that also exacerbated it are not. Putin's moves towards Ukraine have become markedly more heavy handed, even though his previous strategy had largely been effective in keeping it "neutral".

All these are simply not accounted for by the analysis that puts US "influence" front and center.

Which is simply masterbating with a fellow US sycophant with more myth and propaganda. — boethius

Exactly. — Mikie

You do realise the irony here?

Now you are misconstruing my point which was AFTER they were bombed to hell they made sure that the countries were liberal democracies, friendly to the Allies, and demilitarized. — schopenhauer1

Right, so is the argument that, through an occupation of the Gaza strip, Israel might be able demilitarise it and then develop occupation policies that'll lead to a long-term rapprochement?

In that case yeah, that might be possible. It'd be very hard and costly but at least it'd be a plan. It doesn't seem to be the current plan though.

But they don't work both ways. The IDF doesn't livestream itself committing atrocities on civilians and raping women to death. Hamas fighters behave like animals. They revel in the sadism. They think they have a divine mandate to kill Jews. They want to wipe them all out.

There is not a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas. — RogueAI

And, I suppose the implication is, whoever has the moral advantage is the good guy, and the good guy can do whatever it takes.

To me this is just as risible as the parallel argument where whoever is most oppressed is the victim and the victim can do whatever it takes. A parody of a moral argument.

Israel's Arab neighbors are culturally inferior to Israel. Their Islamic-based values are abhorrent. The world would be a better place if Israel conquered it's Arab neighbors, occupied them, and forced a constitutional republic on them where women and LGBTQ people are given equal rights. Can you imagine the rejoicing that would take place from tens of millions of women and girls if that happened? — RogueAI

I can also imagine the abject carnage that would precede the rejoicing. And maybe we would find that the people don't take all that kindly to our civilising mission.

If only we had some good, recent evidence to judge this proposal. Perhaps if some massive military power had invaded some middle eastern states and attempted to turn them into liberal democracies we could look how that went.

Straw man as I didn’t state that, just facts. Allies utterly bombed the hell out of these countries and occupied them for a time. — schopenhauer1

The question is, do you think the relevant factor for their post war recovery was how thoroughly they had been destroyed

That’s speculative. Hopefully Netanyahu gets kicked out but then again how solid was post war Germany at the beginning? However, from what seems to have been stated it’s some sort of entity that isn’t hostile to Israel but have no idea what that looks like. Again, tgst is just from what’s said, so speculation. You can do that too but then your speculation is just that too. — schopenhauer1

I think we'd have to see what arguments we come up with rather than throw our hands up and say "it's all speculation anyways".

I don't see how Israel can develop the kind of rapport with the arabs that the US managed with Japan and Germany. In the case of Japan, the US had the emperor to work with, along with the somewhat ironic twist that the Japanese death cult turned into a kind of studied subservience once their defeat was obvious.

In Germany the US had already been as much a model to strive after as an object of hate. Americans and Germans did not have the kind of baggage Israel would have to deal with.

And again there's the basic problem of where there's room for the arabs in Israel, politically speaking.

People expect action from their leaders during times of economic misery. As FDR said, "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach."

This is a silly point you are arguing. When a country is attacked or when it's economy isn't working people expect action from their leader. Had Netanyahu not retaliated, as some here propose, he would have been removed by the Knesset for dereliction of duty or cowardice or incompetence, and deservedly so. His replacement would then have retaliated. — RogueAI

Well and had Hamas not attacked Israel, they'd have been replaced by some other fanatical islamist organisation. As @Baden has repeatedly pointed out, all these arguments work both ways.

People defend Hamas citing exactly the political realities you're using in defense of Israel. That Hamas is the underdog. That Palestinians are oppressed. That one cannot expect the oppressed to be reasonable and just turn the other cheek.

I've noticed some of the people here hold Israel to a ridiculously high standard, almost like a Madonna-complex, and when Israel doesn't live up to the impossible saintly expectations, they're lumped in with the animals that attacked them. — RogueAI

Animals, yes. And what can you do with animals but to exterminate them. And since we cannot guarantee that the children of Gaza do not also turn into animals, the proper reaction is therefore to kill them all. Perhaps "god will know his own", as the apocryphal saying goes.

"During one week in February 1946, a committee of 24 Americans, both military and civilian, drafted a democratic constitution for Japan. MacArthur approved it and SCAP presented it to Japan's foreign minister as a fait accompli."
https://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/lessons_on_the_japanese_constitution#:~:text — RogueAI

Meanwhile the Germans were allowed their own constitutional conference. Does it follow therefore that Germany is still Germany but Japan isn't?

But the US did occupy Germany and Japan after utterly destroying many of their cities. There’s even dozen or so US army bases still in Germany and in Japan. When Western and Eastern Germany was rebuilt, it was definitely in a new framework molded to each sides image. It doesn’t mean it was some occupied territory forever (but was for a time). It had to be a liberal democracy again though. — schopenhauer1

This idea that Germany and Japan were somehow remade out of while cloth by the allies, turning former barbarians into civilized people (as per @RogueAI) is really weird. Is this somehow a result of how the history of WW2 is taught, that the continuity of either nation was permanently shattered?

Edit: now that I think about it, I guess there is a popular history that Germany wasn't properly defeated after WW1 so the allies had to finish the job properly and excise the evil spirit of prussian militarism permanently.

Neither Germany nor Japan were transformed into killing machines by some evil spell, and neither nation just effortlessly switched back after the war. That the result was as positive has much to do with the integration of these countries into the anti-communist alliance, which justified lenient policies while providing a new sense of identity (very much abbreviated).

It would not be easy for Israel to pull off something similar. Centrally the current conception of the Israeli stated seems to me utterly opposed to giving the arabs en Masse some sort of unifying identity as a part of Israel.

Just like it's a political reality that people won't take a longstanding political grievance combined with economic misery "lying down".

The solution this political reality offers is not new. Hamas is clear in what it proposes. So are some Israelis. Perhaps we should laud them for their honesty and just get on with it?

So, get your killing out of the way, lest someone outdoes you?

As an aside, I'm a bit surprised no one has claimed that Washington is the real actual true cause of Putin's rise. :) — jorndoe

I think it's implied. How could it be anything else when US imperialism is the singular force that determines events around the world.

Well maybe only the bad ones.

You have to respond because your country is being attacked. — Hanover

Do you? Why?

This is no valid syllogism.

It's my position that the Israeli response is necessary to protect Israeli interests. If you disagree, you can present one of two arguments: (1) the Israeli response is disproportionate to the threat, meaning it excessively exacts damage beyond what is necessary to achieve safety for its citizens, or (2) Israel has no legitimate interest to protect because it is either an illegal occupier of the land or because it deserves this comuppance.

If you choose #1, you've got to set out what the proportionate response is. That no one can seem to do this leads me to believe that #2 is the real position everyone here actually has. The #2 position calls for the eliminatation of Israel, which is why Israel is ignoring the protests. — Hanover

No I don't have to do that.

It could simply be the case that there is no proportionate response that protects Israeli interests. Reality is not obligated to arrange itself so that Israeli interests can always be met.

Why even bother replying if all you're going to do is demonstrate that you really don't want to answer?

Well, whatever. This just seems to be one of those topics that makes it impossible to talk to someone you don't share some basic assumptions with.

So while you could reasonably say in the Vietnam example we need to stop and rethink strategy and withdraw, you can't say the same of Israel. Actual bombs are falling and you have to respond even if it pangs your conscience that maybe you've not been a perfect neighbor in the past. — Hanover

You just have to respond, and that's that? No further argument is necessary other than "something happened, therefore a response must happen"?

My position is that Israel's right to protect itself is a given, just like the US's. The question is whether a full scale invasion of Gaza does that. I say it does. If you say it doesn't, again I ask, what does? — Hanover

But why do we need to supply a strategy in order to be allowed to criticize? It should rightly be the other way around. It should be incumbent on the one who exercises violence to justify that violence. If they can't, then they're wrong. Whether the other party can supply some alternative means of resolution is irrelevant.

This is not an argument for absolute pacifism. But you can't turn around and turn the moral onus for your position on your interlocutor.

Had Israel re-established security outside Gaza and then done nothing, a whole lot fewer people would be dead now. Of course the conflict would not be solved and Hamas could then kill even more people in the future. But if you want to make that argument then at the very least you need to be pretty sure whatever you're doing will a) destroy Hamas and b) not result in another similar group taking its place.

When will Israel be protected? Are there any limits on what it can do?

From what you quoted I asked a series of questions. Israel took it as all out war on Hamas. If they give up, that would end. They could give up no? — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure how that would work. Who would have the authority to do that? Someone might have the theoretical authority, but practically they'd just be ignored.

Of course every individual fighter could give up, sure.

Just curious, what if Israel just went into a hornets nest to get Hamas and were massacred? — schopenhauer1

Then they'd have to adjust their tactics. But still the core idea here seems to be you just have to "get Hamas", because they're evil and did something terrible. But that's the emotional reaction. Why is that the baseline we have to accept?

I think we all agree though, Hamas is evil. But the difference is Israel's response. How does one respond to Hamas? The reality is they are entrenched in that region and their goals are to do it again. If Israel did very little and Hamas did another October 7th attack, what then? How about after that? How about after that? In fact, what if the Jews in Israel just let them keep attacking and go on with their lives? — schopenhauer1

Why do we have to start form the position that the obvious thing is what Israel is doing, that is all-out war? Why is that the default outcome we somehow have to accept, even though we have plenty of historical precedent that it just doesn't work? Or rather it can work, if you follow it up with ethnic cleansing.

Shouldn't it be incumbent on the people who argue for violence - any violence - to first prove conclusively at least that it'll be effective? Oh sure in war you cannot second guess for evey bullet you fire. But you should at least have a coherent and plausible strategic aim.

Asking for a justification isn't condoning Hamas, nor does one need to accept responsibility for further atrocities by concluding that there's no good answer to the problem. The default should not be to go ahead and kill people because you just have to do something.

But suppose we take all that to be true. It does not for a moment negate the fact that Russia would view any support from the US as hostile interference. Even assuming best intentions to spread democracy and helping an ally stand up against oppression and imperialism.

Our own people knew this and said so outright. I won’t go through the quotes again. So again, were they wrong? Or does it not matter because Russia has been bent on conquering Ukraine all along? (According to you.) — Mikie

I asked this before, but you seem to have taken to ignore me.

Anyways assuming that Russia views any US support as hostile interference, what is the proper course to take?

The danger of pushing NATO was known long before Putin. That never changed. Russia was weaker at some points, but the position on NATO — particularly Ukraine — remained the same.

But don’t take my word for it. Or the Kremlin’s. Take the following — from 1995 (quite a while before 2004):

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/09/21/should-nato-growa-dissent/

Just one example. Another, from 1997: — Mikie

But these are arguments from the 1990s. Could the US / European course towards Russia have been much, much better in the 90s and early 2000s? Absolutely, yes. The end of the cold war was bungled in spectacular fashion.

The problem is that your claim that:

NATO expansion was the most direct cause of this war. — Mikie

doesn't follow from the above. Your insistence on "the most direct cause" has no justification in your premises.

Doesn’t make Putin a good guy, as simpletons will surely interpret this as saying, but it’s at least worth being honest about. — Mikie

It does seem to absolve him of a great deal of responsibility though.

Would you be OK with saying that Clemenceau, by insisting on harsh terms in the treaty of Versailles, set "the most direct cause" for world war 2?

Or we can pretend the US isn’t the world superpower these last 30 years, and that its intentions are mostly benign. — Mikie

What are it's intentions like?

Did the US try to "wipe out" Nazi Germany? They wanted to wipe out the Nazi regime, indeed. And they did at great cost. And by the end of the war, the US didn't say "Ok, well the Nazis are sufficiently pushed back to their own accepted borders... let's go home now". At that point, past 1941, it was all but over for the Nazis, and certainly by 1945. — schopenhauer1

When are we talking about? Germany still had warfighting capacity in 1945. Heavily degraded, yes, but it's not like they could not rebuild.

Anyways one of the relevant differences is that defeating the German military and occupying their territory was a reasonable plan to prevent Germany from fighting another war of aggression.

The challenge is that Israel's plan for Gaza is not a rational path to security for Israel.

Possibly. It would have to be done very carefully and legally, though. Countries have duties to their own citizens that go way beyond duties to innocents in foreign lands. — RogueAI

I think legally Gaza is Israel. So the Gazans are Israeli citizens, whether either likes it or not.

No. Are you claiming Nazi Germany was a civilized place? We could argue about Japan after I see your answer on this one. — RogueAI

Germany existed prior to 1936.

But also yes, Nazi Germany was "civilised". The Nazis weren't some alien species that suddenly appeared in the middle of Europe. While Nazism was a peculiarly German ideology in some ways, it's also recognisably a product of european civilisation.

That's what makes it so scary: it unleashed the murderous ideas that European powers had confined to their colonies on the heart of Europe itself.

I understand the psychology of this, but I don't forgive it. I don't forgive the ignorance of history, the immediate forgetfulness, the inability to draw analogies, the absolute lack of nuance, the wilful moral blindness, all that which renders otherwise intelligent people helplessly unable to condemn the killing of civilians, even children, unless the right ones are being killed. So, yes, I'm halfway with you on your analysis but I draw contrary conclusions. My conclusion is that it's not "unfortunate" what happened after 9/11 any more than it is "unfortunate" what Israel is doing now; it is, rather, wilfully criminal and predominantly an expression of hatred and revenge that will be recognized as such in the history books and in the later consciences of those who were misguided enough to go along with it. — Baden

Well said!

The deaths of the Palestinians I lay at the feet of Hamas, not Israel.. Men drape themselves in Palestinian babies with guns blazing toward the innocent and the world stands in shock at those who return fire and not at those men? That is a world gone mad. — Hanover

It should probably be considered a compliment that people think you're susceptible to moral appeals.

You'd think from your description, Hamas has Israel where it wants them. From my chair, Hamas is being devastated and their only hope is in winning a political battle on the streets that will convince Israel to stop the onslaught. — Hanover

I don't think Hamas had any illusions as to their ability to fight the IDF head on. Perhaps they were counting on a more limited response, or perhaps not. Ultimately I don't think they care either way.

But anyway, no one has actually responded by providing a real battle plan as the bombs fall. — Hanover

Seems like an odd requirement on the philosophy forum.

But anyways I think the battle plan would involve not fighting the Hamas directly but instead setting up a scheme that incentives the Gazan citizens to withdraw their support for Hamas.

Probably take back direct rule over the Gaza strip, start with an area and show that you can provide something more tangible than hate.

Of course it's correct to advocate for releasing the hostages. I don't see it as effective. That is I see no way such advocacy has tangible results.

I guess we could lobby our governments to pressure the gulf states to pressure Hamas.

I think it would indeed lead to some sort of cease-fire. — schopenhauer1

I'm not so optimistic. It rather seems like the policy currently is to wreck Gaza to make it unliveable. Which is arguably a more plausible plan than to somehow "pacify" it by killing Hamas fighters.

My own answer is what the Israelis are doing now - and I do not see that they have much choice. — tim wood

If only we had some historical precedent to assess the likelihood of that working.