All of these things are measures — Christoffer

Phew! That's good to hear. Global climate change is sorted then.

President Biden opened a global summit on climate change Thursday morning by announcing that the United States will aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half, based on 2005 levels, by the end of the decade.

'Aiming' is not a measure, it's political rhetoric. — Isaac

Aiming with actual actions taken to put it into reality. It's not rhetoric if we're actually mobilizing towards it. As a person with actual insight into the military in Sweden, they're not in "stand by" mode while waiting on 2 new brigades and advanced Baltic surveillance. We're already mobilized in defense mode and constantly increasing defense.

What you read about us is what media gives you, which is a very shallow perspective of what is going on here. You don't know anything and I or any other swede with insight into details won't ever tell you either since it's part of our national defensive instructions during a time when Russia is actively doing cyber attacks and activating sleeper spies. We just caught two top Russian spies who we've been feeding bad intel to over the course of five years since discovery.

You really do believe that we're just sitting still and passive as a nation? Get real

Phew! That's good to hear. Global climate change is sorted then. — Isaac

Without measures to take action, there won't be any actions taken. But I guess since you need to fire in every direction that's even remotely criticizing your viewpoints, you will fall to the level of criticizing semantics when there's nothing else. Big yawn

I think it is in the interests of NATO states to oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One could oppose the invasion on moral grounds, but that might be more hypocritical than self-interest. Europe didn't care that much about the USSR invading Afghanistan--who, outside a small circle of friends, did care? But Ukraine is WAY TOO CLOSE for comfort, being right up against NATO's and the EU borders. — BC

Caring about something is not hypocritical unless it is not genuine. And don't see any reason to believe that most Europeans who object to the Russian invasion on moral grounds are insincere. That they allegedly didn't care that much about the Afghan invasion may be unfortunate, perhaps even hypocritical (if they used hypocritical rationalizations for their indifference), but that doesn't make their present reaction hypocritical.

Do you care about anyone in your life? Do you ever help anyone? Or do you worry that not caring about every person in the world to the same extent and not helping everyone who needs help in equal measure would make you a hypocrite?

And don't see any reason to believe that most Europeans who object to the Russian invasion on moral grounds are insincere. That they allegedly didn't care that much about the Afghan invasion may be unfortunate, perhaps even hypocritical (if they used hypocritical rationalizations for their indifference), but that doesn't make their present reaction hypocritical. — SophistiCat

Do people care more about some things and less about others but equally have some care for both?

The reason the Ukraine has gathered more attention among Europeans is pretty easily explained. It's within Europe, it's based on the history of Europe with the cold war being a major part of our history. As well as more ties between nations in Europe than nations outside of Europe.

I find the whole "hypocrite" criticism pretty ridiculous actually. If someone is shooting outside your window, would you react the same way as if someone shot outside of a window of someone else's house hundreds of kilometers away?

And then there's the factor of world war risks, of nuclear war. Of course such threats gain attention more than nations that does not pose such risks to the world. Even if China is far away from Europe, Europeans will definitely be following everything surrounding an eventual attack on Taiwan. Or the missiles North Korea is firing off right now.

Calling it hypocritical when people have more attention on one conflict over another is like if you had a family member with cancer and you put much time into attention on that person and that type of cancer and someone would call you out for not caring for all cancers and all people with cancer.

Classic. — Isaac

You have peace when countries accept the present drawn borders. From history you can always find different borders. Longing for justice, that the present borders are wrong, is the usual way tyrants start wars.

It's a textbook example of a military that was left to atrophy after the Cold War ended. — Tzeentch

I would disagree. This isn't the late 90's or the '00s as then you would have a point. And that just shows how willing European countries were to embrace a normal Russia into the community.

As @Christoffer pointed out, Sweden has done a lot. A Country capable of producing modern fighter jets and submarines (and of the latter one "sank" in an exercise an American carrier) and has the potential to create nuclear weapons (as it earlier had a nuclear weapons program), I wouldn't regard as an example of atrophy. Not anymore and especially if you make then the difference with Poland. Hence NATO is actually happy to get Sweden and Finland into the organization as the countries increase the strength of the alliance. Besides, countries that base their defence on total defence.

In short, you can ridicule and belittle West Europe's rearmament perhaps starting from Germany itself. No European country is armed to the teeth and willing to use force like Israel. Only perhaps France comes in close with both capability and willingness. And yes, the German armed forces are a mess, but one really shouldn't underestimate Europeans. Things actually have changed in the last years. And February 24th did have effects like 9/11.

I was not objecting to your consideration of different motives. What is fallacious is your argument that the diversity of motives proves that the willingness to fight a common enemy is merely an illusion. You take the lack of commonality as a premise and act surprised when it appears in your conclusion.
You repeat Putin's thinking verbatim: Ukraine does not exist. The resistance being encountered by Russian forces is not Ukrainian. Therefore.......QED.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend from Baluchistan after the Coalition forces took Kabul. He said:

"I appreciate the U.S. trying to put down the Taliban but I don't think they realize that there are millions of the motherfuckers."

A Country capable of producing modern fighter jets and submarines (and of the latter one "sank" in an exercise an American carrier) and has the potential to create nuclear weapons (as it earlier had a nuclear weapons program), I wouldn't regard as an example of atrophy. — ssu

If a world war broke out and we were involved, the amount of engineering we're capable of within the industries we have already established, would put us at a huge advantage in an alliance. We don't have to invent an entire industry, we could basically almost just flip a switch and scale things from there.

The radar planes we will put over the Baltic is made by us, it's a new design made for the requirements of the Baltic region. Any other nation without such an industry would have needed to commission something from another nation, go into trade agreements and deals and have to keep having a line of trade for maintenance of those assets. We can do that ourselves when needed and scale it if needed.

What is happening now is that even if Sweden and Finland were outside of Nato, we would still hold a very tough frontline of northern Europe, Finland having ground advantage and Sweden holding sea and air advantage over the Baltic ocean.

You have peace when countries accept the present drawn borders. From history you can always find different borders. Longing for justice, that the present borders are wrong, is the usual way tyrants start wars. — ssu

I find many African nation's decision to try and keep the borders as they are to be very rational. Even if they're a result of colonization and past conflicts, because they've collectively realized that fighting over such border lines just leads to suffering and destruction of any attempt to build up society. They are smart and morally responsible in their reasoning that it's pointless to keep bitching about such things. That doesn't mean if someone invade their land and try to claim parts of it to be valid, only that they've decided that these are the borders and that's the end of it. Just like Norway and Sweden doesn't bitch about our border, which is a pointless and stupid thing to do in modern times.

Putin destroying Russia's status and economy just to gain some more land because he feels it belongs to him is so outdated and laughable. I mean, we can read about in wonder how Alexander the Great invaded and expanded his empire, but those times were so different. There was an enormous cultural and religious bias back then that almost every nation followed. If he were to be resurrected today and he tried to do the same, people would laugh at him, just like we laugh at Putin's childish strong-man ideals. We've all grown out of such old childish civilisations and anyone who stays in that mentality is considered to be a nutcase.

The main buyers of Swedish arms are not European nations trying to protect themselves from the Russian invader, but Arabs intent on committing genocide in Yemen.

One might expect that if, A) European nations were living in fear of an imminent Russian invasion and, B) Swedish military manufacturing would play a role of any signifance should such an invasion take place, the Swedes would be in big business right now.

Yet we see nothing of the sort, probably because neither A nor B are true.

You don't know anything and I or any other swede with insight into details won't ever tell you either since it's part of our national defensive instructions during a time when Russia is actively doing cyber attacks and activating sleeper spies. We just caught two top Russian spies who we've been feeding bad intel to over the course of five years since discovery. — Christoffer

Shh!

Everything I'm telling you are national news and in the open.

You have peace when countries accept the present drawn borders. — ssu

How's that working out for the citizens of Iraq? Libya? I suppose the ethnic violence in Rwanda was just a bit of high jinx. Somalia? Sudan? Myanmar? Literally any civil war ever...

So the Ingushetia region of Chechnya should have remained part of Russia? Kosovo should have stayed in the remnants of Yugoslavia?

You do say the daftest things sometimes...

What is fallacious is your argument that the diversity of motives proves that the willingness to fight a common enemy is merely an illusion. — Paine

Where have I said that?

There's no such thing as a Ukrainian identity. Ukrainians identify in all sorts of different, occasionally completely incompatible ways. — Isaac

You mean in general, no such thing? If you mean the same in all respects, then sure. Yet, a good lot of Ukrainians have come together against the invader doing their "Slava Ukraini" thing or whatever. I'd count that (even if temporary) as a kind of Ukrainian identity marker or proclamation.

A potential badness here is hate engendered by the invasion. And slogans can become symbolic among extremists, partake in evolving into spurring whatever aggression, and so hate lives on, cycles of badness.

Anyway, Ukrainians have come together against the invader. They don't have to be the same in all or most respects to self-identify (and act) as such.

Europe isn't worried about their security. — Tzeentch

Err yes, Europeans are worried about security. Except, (collectively) they're kind of politically impotent in that respect.

There was a general air that Russia wasn't really much of a threat, which is changing to some degree. You'll find plenty of voices against the EU and cooperation (and NATO for that matter), which plays right into Putin's hands (hmm almost have to wonder if there's an influence there somewhere :chin:). Now watch European politics fumble about. :smile:

“You cannot pick and choose”
^{— Annalena Baerbock · German Federal Foreign Office · Jan 12, 2023}

Let's see then.

Err yes, Europeans are worried about security. — jorndoe

I've already laid out an argument why I don't believe that's true, the most notable point being that there's barely any nation within Europe that maintains a military that can grant a credible deterrent, except Poland. If Poland says they're worried about a potential Russian invasion, I believe them, because they consistently act the part.

Kremlin rule isn't really that...attractive...

Hundreds of Russian doctors sign open letter asking Putin to ‘stop abusing’ Navalny
^{— Elena Giordano · POLITICO · Jan 11, 2023}

Defiant Navalny has opposed Putin’s war in Ukraine from prison. His team fear for his safety
^{— Nic Robertson · CNN · Jan 13, 2023}

Germany calls on Russia to allow Navalny to receive necessary medical aid
^{— Alexander Ratz, Miranda Murray, Rachel More · Reuters · Jan 13, 2023}

The plot thickens further...

How was a Canadian engine used in an Iranian drone in Ukraine?
^{— Aron Reich · Jerusalem Post · Jan 13, 2023}

You mean in general, no such thing? If you mean the same in all respects, then sure. Yet, a good lot of Ukrainians have come together against the invader doing their "Slava Ukraini" thing or whatever. I'd count that (even if temporary) as a kind of Ukrainian identity marker or proclamation. — jorndoe

Sure, but same goes for a load of people getting together to do anything. Run a marathon. Clear mines. Save lives in wars zones. There's nothing unique about getting together to fight a common enemy which creates some moral purpose which we then are under an obligations to respect. The Nazis got together for a common goal.

The argument given is not just that Ukrainians have some kind of common identity, but that that identity ought be reflected in international borders and that we, hundreds of miles away, ought respect and support that no matter the cost.

It's absurd. And getting together for a common aim doesn't even begin to justify $50 billion spent on preserving it. Did the starving millions not have sufficient 'identity'?

hypocritical — SophistiCat

What I was thinking of when I typed 'hypocritical' was countries terming the Russian action in Ukraine as "immoral". Countries like the USA, for instance, who have carried out invasions in the pursuit of national interest. To whatever extent the USA claimed its invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan was in pursuit of 'moral ends' was hypocritical in several ways.

So, I don't think the USA is supporting Ukraine for solely moral reasons (though supporting Ukraine seems moral enough to me).

Does this clarify my use of the term?

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

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

Sure, , just keep any tunnel vision at bay.
NATO has also helped dull national attention to defense.
Switzerland and Sweden have a tradition of neutrality.
Maybe those days are over?


, ah, the border-free no-nation world again.
Easy enough to understand, except we're not there.
I guess one might hope for a better humanity; thorough cooperation, participation, ethics of being part of the larger world, non-aggression, etc?
Was it Sanders that said something like "not us and them, it's all us"?
(Incidentally, I don't think Putin could be part thereof, not if wielding power at least.)
Anyway, the "Slava Ukraini" thing is clear enough in this case, a self-proclaimed (partial) identity, with "throw the invaders out" connotations.

None of these states have militaries that are on a modern operational level, nor have they taken any steps towards making them so. — Tzeentch

From what sources are you getting this information? Most sources that I have seen do not reflect this view. There has been a long ongoing call from U.S. to have other NATO members fork out more dough. But that gets complicated when reviewing how nations develop defense on their own compared to their commitments to NATO.

do not waste your precious time in something worthless as Catalonia-Spain conflict — javi2541997

Actually, the Catalonia-Spain conflict resides on level 1197 of my things-to-worry-about queue, just above the future of Nursultan Nazarbayev, deposed boss of Kazakstan.

From what sources are you getting this information? — Paine

These countries' active military personnel and materiel combined add up to a fraction of what, for example, Ukraine is currently fielding to fight the Russians. That information is publicly available, aka you can simply Google those numbers.

They have neither the manpower nor the equipment to wage prolonged war, even if we assume all the materiel is up-to-date and functional, which is a big 'if', considering pretty much every European country gave up on the idea of large-scale land warfare and neglected that part of their armed forces over the last decades.

I tried googling the numbers and did not get matching results. What is your preferred database?

Edited to add forgotten not. Apologies.

As a defensive force you only need to field a third of any offensive force. Assuming EU members will support each other, how far/close are we to such a figure?

Where have I said that? — Isaac

Still don't. There's no such thing as a Ukrainian identity. Ukrainians identify in all sorts of different, occasionally completely incompatible ways. That's why there was a civil war going on before this invasion.

Exactly. The reason why so many in this discussion cannot seem to get their heads around viewing this in any other grouping than by nationality.

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

These are the moves you have repeated for hundreds of pages.

Actually, the Catalonia-Spain conflict resides on level 1197 of my things-to-worry-about queue, just above the future of Nursultan Nazarbayev, deposed boss of Kazakstan. — BC

:rofl: :up:

I tried googling the numbers and did not get matching results. — Paine

Sweden, 23,600 active military personnel
Estonia, 7,200 active military personnel
Latvia, 16,700 active military personnel
Lithuania, 23,000 active military personnel
Finland, 23,800 active military personnel

(first hit on Google if you type: "<country> active military personnel", lazy I know)

~100,000 active military personnel, spread out over a massive area.

These numbers clearly in no way present the image of countries that are fearing an invasion. For reference, Ukraine had over 300,000 active military personnel at the onset of the Russian invasion and it has only a fraction of these country's combined GDP. Hell, Sweden alone doubles Ukraine's GDP.

As a defensive force you only need to field a third of any offensive force. Assuming EU members will support each other, how far/close are we to such a figure? — Benkei

Europe combined comes fairly close to equaling Russian numbers, or perhaps slightly surpassing their numbers, but that doesn't convey the full picture. The issue is with operational readiness of European armies, who have been neglecting their armed forces and thought large-scale land warfare to be a thing of the past. Sources elude me for a moment, but experts have theorized that Ukraine and possibly Poland are the only nations in Europe that could have kept up with the type of combat seen in Ukraine today. Not the French, not the Germans, not the British, etc. despite their armed forces being relatively sizable, and their equipment likely better than the Ukrainians'.

In regards to the idea that one can defend against a force with one third of its number - that's military shorthand, but reality can be much more stubborn than that.

When the Russians invaded Ukraine, they did so with a force of roughly 200,000, against a Ukrainian force of 300,000.

Or when the Germany army invaded France in 1939, they roughly doubled France's number and France got, as we all know, completely swept aside.

ah, the border-free no-nation world again.
Easy enough to understand, except we're not there. — jorndoe

No. We're not in a world where Russia are going to withdraw from eastern Ukraine either. Why the sudden burst of pragmatism?

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

As such appeal to such a notion morally is absurd.

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

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



Nothing in there says anything like "willingness to fight a common enemy is merely an illusion.". If you want to argue against the media-bogeyman version of one who is opposed to the war then start a blog. If you want to argue on a discussion forum, then read the comments that are posted and respond to them.

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

None of this prevents groups of people from ephemerally having common goals. what it does is remove any moral weight behind that commonality. Large groups of people can agree on a course of action and still be morally wrong about it.

How's that working out for the citizens of Iraq? Libya? I suppose the ethnic violence in Rwanda was just a bit of high jinx. Somalia? Sudan? Myanmar? Literally any civil war ever... — Isaac

Yes, Isaac, there can be civil wars.

So the Ingushetia region of Chechnya should have remained part of Russia? Kosovo should have stayed in the remnants of Yugoslavia?

You do say the daftest things sometimes... — Isaac

Daft like you arguing that Ingushetia is a part of Checnnya and Chechnya has somehow broken away from Russia?

You're really funny.