NS1 was in use. NS2 wasn't.

I call bullshit because it's too convenient to have all these details become available within 24 hours of it becoming definitive at least one Ukrainian is suspected.

It's wait and see again.

Right, I falsely remembered that NS 1 was merely shut off by the Russians and only NS 2 was affected.

Another odd thing about the timing of the attack: it happened about a month after Russia unilateraly suspended deliveries, which meant that neither pipeline was actually operational at the time.

The Germans are apparently looking for a Ukrainian diving instructor named 'Volodymyr Z.' :lol:

You couldn't make this shit up. It's like they're purposefully trying to humiliate Germany at this point.

I heard from reliable sources he also had an American accomplice. A certain 'Joe B.' :lol:

↪neomac
I meant civil claims. Or do you think Gasunie, Engie, BASF and E.ON wil not be concerned with losing their investments? The standard of proof is also lower so we could see judgments against, for instance, Ukraine that would not reach the level of proof required for criminal cases but will imply guilt. — Benkei

If the question is “which country was behind it”, I find it very much possible that Ukrainians were behind it, on their own initiative, not on Great Satan’s. But it seems unlikely they really did it all alone given that the attack started from within Germany and the infrastructure was of strategic relevance particularly to Germany, while other Western countries (like the US and Poland) were against Nordstream II.
I think that the economic reason of “losing their investments” is pretty compelling but not that compelling: Western investments were spread across different Western companies, damage to Nordstream II wasn’t beyond repair, private investments might have been somehow compensated (even having the Nordstream II functional but unused is still loss of ROI), and most of all, economic reasons can be overcome by security concerns.
What would be embarrassing for Western officials in the eyes of public opinion is if Western and Ukrainian officials were involved. That’s why we should expect they worked on plausible deniability, and will likely keep it as an inside conflict as long as needed in case there might be reason for disagreement. Actually there is something of a pattern here: indeed, how many Ukrainian operations which Western officials publicly disapproved of did already happen? Maybe Nordstream II was just among the first ones. And let’s not forget that Western officials are not only pressed by Western public opinions but also by the Russian escalatory logic (after all Nord Stream II was 51% Russian as you reported). So Westerners may be enabling or even just assenting to Ukrainians all along with these "controversial" operations while withholding the extent of their support from the public mostly to circumvent the Russian red line logic as long as needed.

Let's remember Seymour Hersh's "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline" as the most serious piece of investigation over the Nordstream sabotage, according to the most serious poster in the this thread.

In an interview, Vera Grantseva briefly opines (sort of related to that "alternate world" thing):

ENTRETIEN. Guerre en Ukraine : "Humilié, Poutine devient l’otage de ses propres mensonges" (en)
^{— La Dépêche · Aug 15, 2024}

It's interesting you keep talking about this alternate world. It's almost like your subconscious is trying to tell you something.

It's wait and see again. — Benkei

What are you waiting for, exactly?

The US to come out and say they did it? Wait and see what they write in the history books twenty years from now?

If what you are waiting for is conclusive evidence, that's just not how this type of thing works. Clandestine operations are set up with the express purpose of being nigh impossible to conclusively find out who did it, and thus they provide 'plausible deniability' to the perpetrator.

This 'sitting and waiting' reflex seems to be a form of intellectual paralysis, brought on by the fog of war and continuous propaganda campaigns. It's actually one of the goals of information warfare to bring the adversary into that state of mind, in which case it is called strategic paralysis. It hadn't occured to me until now that this also happens to domestic audiences.

Don't get me wrong. I get the reflex out of intellectual rigor, and usually reserving judgement is the 'correct' thing to do, but in this case it's exactly where the propagandist wants you to be.

Here your assumptions seem that “legitimate security concerns” for one state is only about being “invaded” by foreign countries, and that the only relevant comparison over security concerns is between the US and Russia. But I deeply disagree with both. — neomac

I don't see where you get the idea that I'm reducing security concerns to invasion. Obviously invasion is topical for this discussion, but there are plenty of other security concerns as well. For example, between the US and Russia, the main security concern would be a nuclear war.

1. As I argued elsewhere, “legitimate” is an ambiguous expression: it can be used to express “accuracy” of one’s judgement about perceived risks in terms of security. In that sense also nazis, terrorists, mobsters have legitimate security concerns, because certainly there historical circumstances that potentially harm nazis, terrorists, mobsters more than other circumstances. In another sense, “legitimate” is about other people’s recognition or acknowledgement about somebody’s rights to commit certain actions within an international legal order. So nazis, terrorists, mobsters violating this legal order can not appeal to “legitimate” security concerns to justify their violations, no right of violating the international legal order can be acknowledged by those who are committed to preserve such international legal order. An unprovoked aggressive war (the one Russia inflicted on Ukraine) is not justifiable by security concerns in light of the legal world order Westerners support, a provoked defensive war (the one by which Ukraine resists Russia) is. “Provoked” is not about hypothetical scenarios but actual offensive acts like actual territorial sovereignty violations (as in Russian actual territorial occupation of Ukraine).
I don’t mind you using the expression “legitimate security concerns” once the distinction of the 2 meanings is clearly stated and acknowledged because we should neither conflate the 2 meanings nor assume that one implies the other. Indeed, one can successfully claim that Russia has legitimate security concerns in the first sense, and yet deny the second after the invasion of Ukraine. — neomac

As I've explained many times, "legitimacy" is a concept that is useful in the context of a negotiation, to denote where your own side sees (or you're arguing should see) the other side as having a point needing to be addressed in some way. I often used the example of detectives trying to get information from a criminal. If the criminal demands a coffee, his right to outside time being respected, and a flying horse, the detectives may conclude between themselves that the coffee and the outside time is a legitimate concern, they should address those if they want the criminal to cooperate, but the flying horse is illegitimate and they'll just have to deny that request.

If the detectives don't want anything from the criminal, they are unlikely to care as much, if at all, about the criminals concerns.

The main thing you are still unable to see is that you cannot go from "rights" or "concerns", of one kind or another, to justifications.

"A right" and "a concern" are one aspect of the situation, if we on our side of a conflict or dispute recognize that the other side does have a legitimate right or legitimate concern then that simply indicates to ourselves that we'll need to pay attention to this aspect of the situation and likely need to address it in a robust way, compared to what we view as illegitimate which can just be dismissed offhand (such as a criminal demanding a flying horse). If you go into a court of law or a negotiation recognizing the counter-party does indeed have a legitimate right or concern, the judge will naturally expect you to address in a sophisticated way and then go onto explain that on the whole that legitimacy on those points are insufficient to make their case and your case is the one that is justified.

For example, in contract disputes it is pretty common that both parties have broken the contract in one and usually several areas, and each side will then argue the other side did it first, did it worse, did it intentionally, caused more damages, didn't reasonable address the issue once emerged, didn't negotiate the contract correctly to begin with, didn't secure the appropriate insurance, didn't amend the understanding correctly on the fly which should have been triple stamped and signed in blood with a notary present, etc. etc. etc.

Legitimacy is simply the opposing demarkation to bullshit. If you receive a longwinded demand from a scummy lawyer, the first thing you'll want to do is separate the legitimate points from the bullshit, either born from incompetence or expressly designed to waste your time (usually its both simultaneously), and then come up with robust arguments that address the legitimate points and witty retorts and dismissals to the bullshit if address them at all.

2. Binding the notion of “justification” to that of military victory and defeat, or war and peace is questionable. Afghans, Palestinians, Kurds are evidence that people won’t renounce to defend what they perceive to be their land and people against foreign oppression because of the disparity of military means and costs for fighting foreign oppression. — neomac

No where have I equated justification with military victory.

Fighting under impossible odds can be justified, but the situation must be extreme.

To argue an action is justified requires arguing the likely consequences are acceptable and preferable. So, to attack your kidnappers with 100 to 1 odds of prevailing over being shot in the head, requires more than the right of self defence to justify, you must argue that the likely result of being dead is preferable to continuing to be captive. Obviously you prefer that 1% of chance of taking down your captors with improvised kung fu, but your action is only justified if you are also content with the far more likely result of being dead. To make things more morally concrete, not just a "you" thing, the situation is that attacking your captors will likely result in you and the other captives you're with also being shot in the head.

If your decision is based purely on the "feeling" that somehow you'll prevail against what you have no problem recognizing is 100 to 1 odds, and you yourself have no problem recognizing the captors will simply leave once they've done robbing the place, then that's just magical thinking that gets people killed for no justifiable reason. However, if the captors are likely to torture, rape and the murder everyone whatever happens, then those 100 to 1 odds are looking pretty good.

Vis-a-vis Ukraine, one can simply argue that land ownership is more important than anything else and it is better to fight to the death than give-up 1m^2 of land. As I and @Isaac made very clear, we obviously don't share that view.

However, even on this premise that fighting to the death for land with low odds of victory is justifiable, it does not somehow just magically justify forcing people into fighting, taking away their right to freedom of movement, taking away their right to free elections and a free press and a due process and pretty much every other right they previously had (however poorly implemented in the pervasively corrupt state of Ukraine).

As I've said many times, if Ukrainians (the individual soldiers) were really fighting of their own choice without coercion with more-or-less correct understanding of the situation, knowing the low odds of success, then I wouldn't have much of a problem and wouldn't have much of an argument. Obviously we could still argue whether that really is a justified position or not, still argue about the strategic military choices, and so on, but if it really was a case of "Ukrainians want to fight"; the situation would be tragic but there would be little to really argue about.

However, when the power of the state is used to corrupt people's understanding with propaganda (both Ukraine and Western governments), a flood of external and contingent (on doing what the West wants) money is bribing the elites in effective control of the state, take away people's rights, coerce them to the front lines, and the end result is massive amounts of death and suffering and nothing to show for it, then there's plenty to take issue with.

The narrative of "Ukrainians want to fight" that's brought out whenever the terrible consequences (slip through the cracks of state propaganda) is just more state propaganda to dull the senses of Westerners who step back a moment from the cheerleading and get uncomfortable with what the actual consequences of our choices are and ask obvious questions (like whether it was a good idea to rebuke Russia's offers to negotiate a liveable peace in Eastern-Europe for decades).

2. If one wants to reason strategically over longer term objectives under evolving geopolitical conditions one can not discount NATIONAL interest as perceived by the concerned nation (Ukrainians and Russians, to begin with) nor discount how all other relevant players are reacting to such conflict. So defining necessary and sufficient conditions as a function of chances of winning or achieving peace as soon as possible (not even as long as possible?) based on current military capacity of the two direct belligerents, and independently from perceived national interest or other actors’ playing strategy, looks historically and strategically myopic to me.
At best, you may wish to persuade Ukrainians (not me) that it is not in their national interest to refuse to become Russian vassals. But I would be surprised if Ukrainians would find your arguments conclusive since their national identity is rooted in a historical opposition to Russian national identity and oppression. It would like to trying to convince them that the Ukrainian national interest is better served by being Russified. — neomac

Right on cue, the exact propaganda I just responded to.

If there was no coercing Ukrainians to fight, then sure, let them fight. However, considering the few Ukrainians outside of Ukraine that return to fight and the many that attempt and do leave, this narrative is simply not true.

As has been repeated many times, my primary issue is with Western policy (as I'm a Westerner and I mostly affect and am responsible for Western policy) and my secondary issue is with Ukrainian policy.

Obviously "Ukrainians" clearly don't want to fight, else there wouldn't be press gangs forcing them to the front lines and there wouldn't be all the whining and bitching about needing Western nations to round up the Ukrainians (refugees from a war; which we proudly recognize the rights of refugees from every other war) who got out and needing to send them back to Ukraine and force them to the front lines.

And, obviously "Ukrainian sovereignty" is not the concern of the West or we would send our own troops to defend this important thing.

The situation is not one of sophisticated moral, political and strategic thinking, but of Western elites cynically bribing Ukrainian elites under the cover of sophisticated propaganda for Western elite purposes, to in turn exploit Ukrainians to fight and die so elites can continue to pocket said bribes.

Furthermore, losing a war now to prevent losing a war later is not sophisticated strategic thinking.

Can't respond more now, but I'll try to make time for it.

This 'sitting and waiting' reflex seems to be a form of intellectual paralysis, brought on by the fog of war and continuous propaganda campaigns. It's actually one of the goals of information warfare to bring the adversary into that state of mind, in which case it is called strategic paralysis. It hadn't occured to me until now that this also happens to domestic audiences.

Don't get me wrong. I get the reflex out of intellectual rigor, and usually reserving judgement is the 'correct' thing to do, but in this case it's exactly where the propagandist wants you to be. — Tzeentch

Though I agree with your basic point here, @Benkei's issue seems to be the particularly with the story about the plan to blowup the pipelines being essentially a drunken frat prank.

I think some skepticism about this particular story is warranted and seems to play into the propaganda technique of downplaying elite crimes as serendipitous, "boys will be boys" kind of thing, that elite crimes serve no agenda and aren't "really crimes" as any kindergartener might get up to similar mischief, nothing further to analyse.

In this case the drunken origin story portrays the decision to blowup the pipeline as essentially whimsical, and we can just go ahead and ignore the sophisticated planning that goes into such an operation, that there is almost zero chance Ukraine would act without the US' blessing, that Biden stated clearly they'd find a way to end the pipeline, and the immense surveillance system of the US that renders it difficult to fathom that even if Ukraine did come up and execute the plan by themselves that the US did not know about it

Which connects with your point that obviously it is a clandestine operation which we can be positive in any actionable sense that the US carried it out for all intents and purposes, either directly or then indirectly through Ukraine as a backup patsy, but if @Benkei only meant to say he'll wait and see if it was really all planned on puke stained napkin during a binge and then executed by force of willpower and cocaine alone, that seems warranted.

Ukraine is apparently destroying the bridges across the Seym in targeted strikes. The Seym runs west from the Salient Ukrainian troops have pushed into Kursk Oblast and into Ukraine, meaning that the area south of the river (about 700 km²) could be cut off from major resupply.

This is could be a planned second phase of the offensive, as securing the area would shorten the frontline and put Ukrainian troops on a more easily defensible line.

my primary issue is with Western policy (as I'm a Westerner and I mostly affect and am responsible for Western policy) — boethius

obviously "Ukrainian sovereignty" is not the concern of the West — boethius

So, being a Westerner an'all, sovereignty is not a concern?

How long is Russia going to tolerate this? Is there political pressure on Putin to drive Ukraine back? I've heard the Russian military bloggers aren't happy. How influential are they?

I think some skepticism about this particular story is warranted — boethius

I agree with Benkei's skepticism.

In fact, I would go a step further and say the WSJ story is obviously bullshit.

What amazes is me is the fact that people are even willing to entertain such a story when it's so obvious who is responsible for this.

It's like the propaganda storm is messing with people's 'bullshit filter'.

How long is Russia going to tolerate this? — RogueAI

If by "Russia" we mean the russian public, it's hard to say. Evidently Putin does not feel safe to order full mobilisation or declare a state of war. But Russia is a well established autocracy and as I said before the availble space for any opposition is small. So I don't expect any near-term effects.

Is there political pressure on Putin to drive Ukraine back? — RogueAI

I'm not sure, but since Putin is cultivating the image of an effective and involved war leader, failure to curb the offensive will certainly reflect badly on him.

So far Russia seems to be attempting an asymmetric strategy, where they're not pulling combat units from the front but instead pull together reserve forces while also intensifying combat in other sectors. This avoids playing to the Ukrainian playbook, but it also means it'll likely still be some days or even weeks before an effective counteroffensive can mounted in Kursk.

I've heard the Russian military bloggers aren't happy. How influential are they? — RogueAI

They command a significant following among the ultranationalist crowd, which is an important constituency for Putin. The Kremlin made a number of attempts to gain control over the scene, and made some examples of more vocal critics. Whenever the situation is dynamic and confusing though, the milbloggers have a bit of free reign until a new official line coalesces.

As with everything else this isn't the first time the Kremlin has had to deal with a military failure, so I doubt the current situation is enough to cause a major problem on that front.

If the AFU keep up racking successes on russian territory for a couple of weeks though, that might cause another crisis.

So, being a Westerner an'all, sovereignty is not a concern? — jorndoe

Before even getting to my own views on the issue of state sovereignty as an anarchist, the first problem with the sovereignty argument to justify Western policy is that it is disingenuous.

First, obviously sovereignty is of no general concern to the West: did we care about Iraqi sovereignty, Afghani sovereignty, Libyan sovereignty, Syrian sovereignty, and a long list of other countries the West has invaded, attacked, orchestrated coups and so on?

Obviously not. When the ex-CIA director was asked (in the context of discussing alleged Russian interference in US elections) if the US has meddles in other people's elections, his answer was "nium, nium, nium", and basically when we do it it's for a good cause, which obviously renders sovereignty (of others) a non-factor in formulating foreign policy.

So there's the hypocrisy which makes it impossible to take seriously any such argument in the context of Ukraine.

But, let's say we ignore all that and consider this case in a vacuum, the problem is still rapacious hypocrisy because obviously Ukrainian sovereignty is not our objective.

If it was our objective we would have sent in troops day 1 (or even before) to "stand up to Putin" and protect Ukrainian sovereignty. Which, I remind you, I'm the only one in this conversation that actually advocated that and explained the military and diplomatic steps to do it and why creating such an acute crisis is likely to work and actually less dangerous than a long war and slow slide towards nuclear war.

As I clearly stated, had NATO gone in, Russia backed down, we avoid all this death and destruction that has happened since, great! My main concern here is all the loss of lives (mostly Ukrainian, but Russian too), so if NATO did actually do it's "democracy defending" and avoided all or most of that loss of life, great.

Now, the reason such a policy was unthinkable is not nuclear war, that would be fairly easy to avoid in a confrontation (as Russian elites don't want to be nuked either), but rather such an acute crisis would focus attention and make clear that the only resolution possible would be diplomatic, resulting in not-a-long-war (and so not-a-long-war-profiteering) and thus exactly the kind of "new European security architecture" that Russia was asking for, such as a neutral Ukraine.

You could not have an acute crisis without even the Western media getting serious about it and the only options some negotiated resolution (such as the Cuban missile crisis) and thus Russia getting some of what it wants, such as neutral Ukraine, protection for the Russian speakers, at least token rebuke and commitment to "do something" about actual literal Nazis. For, if there was direct confrontation the propaganda of "we can't negotiate with the Russians, that's up to Ukraine, we're not going to 'go around them' " could not possibly apply, and Western negotiation positions can only be so stupid, but not stupider.

It is only as long as only Ukrainians are doing most of the dying that attention can be obtuse and the propaganda of don't-negotiate, unquestioned Ukrainian just cause ("unprovoked") and drip-feed weapons and so on, can be fed to the public without any criticism in the mainstream media.

Now, we can get into all the apologetics of why Ukraine matters but not that much if you wish, but if we go ahead and assume one or another apologetics argument for not going and defending this sacred sovereignty ourselves manages to work and therefore all we can do is send arms and various covert means.

Well why not send all the arms then? Why have this drip feed of weapons systems over more than 2 years? If Ukrainian sovereignty matters (just not so much as to go ourselves) well why not send the good stuff from day one?

The answer is that the concern is not Ukrainian sovereignty but the policy is to try to damage the Russians using Ukraine as a tool to do so.

But the problems don't end there. If Ukrainian sovereignty (i.e. independent free action) is important, why do you have zero concern for the sovereignty of individual Ukrainians to choose not to fight in the war? How does forcing and coercing individual Ukrainians to the front lines to fight for some sort of abstract "Ukrainian state" right to free action make any sense?

And especially if the support for the war is coming from the right, what happened to "So they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first," and yet when Ukrainian men look to themselves and their families first and don't want to sacrifice themselves for "society" ... well, I guess fuck them is the pro-war rightist message today.

And that only scratches the surface. All in the name of the non-existent "society" that is Ukraine, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of movement, due process, free elections must all be jettisoned to prop up what is now a totalitarian state all in the name of freedom.

The idea what is happening is about "sovereignty" is so hypocritically idiotic it is difficult to even formulate the idea in the mind's eye long enough to write down what's wrong with it.

I agree with Benkei's skepticism.

In fact, I would go a step further and say the WSJ story is obviously bullshit.

What amazes is me is the fact that people are even willing to entertain such a story when it's so obvious who is responsible for this.

It's like the propaganda storm is messing with people's 'bullshit filter'. — Tzeentch

Well then we definitely agree.

Kursk Incursion Boosts Ukrainian Morale After Grim Year (Reuters, 2024)

Lastly, and perhaps most plausibly, this was another PR stunt, just like the previous Ukrainian offensive - to show both domestic and foreign audiences that the war is not yet lost. — Tzeentch

:chin:

One wonders how an incursion into a strategically irrelevant region of Russia at the cost of vast amounts of men and materiel plus the collapse of the Donbas front would remotely bolster morale, but alas the Ukrainian side has long since passed from the realm of rationality.

I don't see where you get the idea that I'm reducing security concerns to invasion. Obviously invasion is topical for this discussion, but there are plenty of other security concerns as well. For example, between the US and Russia, the main security concern would be a nuclear war. — boethius

Do you read what you write? I got it from your own statements which I quoted and highlighted for you (here again: “You cannot invade the US from Ukraine.”). You are FOCUSING on a hypothetical scenario where Russia invades the US from Ukraine. Why? Because you want us to compare such scenario with the hypothetical scenario where the US invades Russia from Ukraine once Ukraine is inside NATO. How should we logically infer from such a comparison that Russia has “legitimate” security concerns?! And Russia is “justified” to invade Ukraine?! And therefore we should somehow appease Russia?! None of this logically follows, RIGHT? My charitable guess is that if you feel compelled to get to these conclusions from “you cannot invade the US from Ukraine” this is because you are drawing your conclusions also from hidden and uncritically accepted premises. So I’m challenging you to make them explicit. More on this in the following comments.

As I've explained many times, "legitimacy" is a concept that is useful in the context of a negotiation, to denote where your own side sees (or you're arguing should see) the other side as having a point needing to be addressed in some way. — boethius

And from what concrete context of negotiation results that Russia’s security concerns are “legitimate”? You are not a negotiator between the US, Ukraine and Russia, are you? And I'm aware of no negotiation reports admitting that Russia security concerns about the possibility that Russia is invaded from Ukraine by the US or NATO if Ukraine joins NATO are “legitimate”, are there?
Besides on what grounds one would see the other side “as having a point needing to be addressed in some way”? Based on one’s own strategic interests? On international law grounds? On moral grounds? On what grounds Russia has a point because the US could invade Russia from Ukraine once Ukraine joins NATO more likely than Russia could invade the US after invading Ukraine?
Is in the US strategic interest, legal or moral duty, to have Russia invade Ukraine because the US could invade Russia from Ukraine once Ukraine joins NATO more likely than Russia could invade the US after invading Ukraine?
And by “addressed in some way” do you mean “conceded in some way”, “satisfied in some way”, “fulfilled in some way”? For example, if Russia has a point because the US could invade Russia from Ukraine once Ukraine joins NATO more likely than Russia could invade the US after invading Ukraine, then Russia must be conceded all its non-negotiable demands (Ukraine outside NATO, demilitarised Ukraine, territorial annexations)?
Because if “addressed in some way” simply means “dealt in some way” also rejection, indifference, opposition are ways of dealing with other people’s requests.
Your confused and confusing way of talking is a way to keep your hidden assumptions unchallenged. You keep evading my objections by repeating the same shallow arguments replete with rhetoric tricks over and over.

"A right" and "a concern" are one aspect of the situation, if we on our side of a conflict or dispute recognize that the other side does have a legitimate right or legitimate concern then that simply indicates to ourselves that we'll need to pay attention to this aspect of the situation and likely need to address it in a robust way, compared to what we view as illegitimate which can just be dismissed offhand (such as a criminal demanding a flying horse). — boethius

The main thing you are still unable to see is that you cannot go from "rights" or "concerns", of one kind or another, to justifications. — boethius

Where do I “go from ‘rights’ or ‘concerns’, of one kind or another, to justifications”? Quote me.

I often used the example of detectives trying to get information from a criminal. If the criminal demands a coffee, his right to outside time being respected, and a flying horse, the detectives may conclude between themselves that the coffee and the outside time is a legitimate concern, they should address those if they want the criminal to cooperate, but the flying horse is illegitimate and they'll just have to deny that request.

If the detectives don't want anything from the criminal, they are unlikely to care as much, if at all, about the criminals concerns — boethius

Sure, DO UT DES, I’ll give you something and you give me something back IF IT IS CONVENIENT TO BOTH OF US. But how does this translate to the current conflict? Who has to decide what is convenient between Russia, Ukraine, the US and European countries? Besides, why is it more convenient to the US, European countries or Ukraine to let Russia invade Ukraine than oppose it? In exchange for what?

If you go into a court of law or a negotiation recognizing the counter-party does indeed have a legitimate right or concern, the judge will naturally expect you to address in a sophisticated way and then go onto explain that on the whole that legitimacy on those points are insufficient to make their case and your case is the one that is justified.

For example, in contract disputes it is pretty common that both parties have broken the contract in one and usually several areas, and each side will then argue the other side did it first, did it worse, did it intentionally, caused more damages, didn't reasonable address the issue once emerged, didn't negotiate the contract correctly to begin with, didn't secure the appropriate insurance, didn't amend the understanding correctly on the fly which should have been triple stamped and signed in blood with a notary present, etc. etc. etc.

Legitimacy is simply the opposing demarkation to bullshit. If you receive a longwinded demand from a scummy lawyer, the first thing you'll want to do is separate the legitimate points from the bullshit, either born from incompetence or expressly designed to waste your time (usually its both simultaneously), and then come up with robust arguments that address the legitimate points and witty retorts and dismissals to the bullshit if address them at all. — "boethius

Political leaders of different countries are not like lawyers in a court of law in this respect: lawyers are guided by a legal framework to assess people’s claims and requests. Such legal framework is supervised and enforced by a unique state authority with overwhelming means to impose its rule, and represented by the judge. In a geopolitical context, conflicts between different state authorities can not be solved by appeal to a super-state authority with a comparable overwhelming power. That means states and their political representatives have to find ways to deal with security threats by themselves with all the economic, political and military means available to them. In particular they have to value what security costs/threats certain concessions to rivals will bring about. Are there no security costs/threats to the US in conceding Russia control over Ukraine? Or there are security costs/threats but they are less significative than NOT conceding Russia control over Ukraine?

Fighting under impossible odds can be justified, but the situation must be extreme. — boethius

Who decides what is “extreme”? On what grounds?

To argue an action is justified requires arguing the likely consequences are acceptable and preferable — boethius

.

Who has to decide what is “likely”, “acceptable” and “preferable”? On what grounds?

So, to attack your kidnappers with 100 to 1 odds of prevailing over being shot in the head, requires more than the right of self defence to justify, you must argue that the likely result of being dead is preferable to continuing to be captive. Obviously you prefer that 1% of chance of taking down your captors with improvised kung fu, but your action is only justified if you are also content with the far more likely result of being dead. To make things more morally concrete, not just a "you" thing, the situation is that attacking your captors will likely result in you and the other captives you're with also being shot in the head — boethius

.

The problem is not how to act after you have “calculated” odds (the part which you systematically skip in your examples) wrt non-shared or potentially conflicting objectives. The problem is how to “calculate” the odds, and wrt non-shared or potentially conflicting objectives. When objectives and method to “calculate” odds are shared I’d expect convergence of conclusions. Not otherwise.
To what extent Russia, the US, Ukraine, Europe countries share security concerns and ways to “calculate” odds?

If your decision is based purely on the "feeling" that somehow you'll prevail against what you have no problem recognizing is 100 to 1 odds, and you yourself have no problem recognizing the captors will simply leave once they've done robbing the place, then that's just magical thinking that gets people killed for no justifiable reason. However, if the captors are likely to torture, rape and the murder everyone whatever happens, then those 100 to 1 odds are looking pretty good — boethius

.

“Feelings” in politics and war and propaganda is not just what interferes with odds computation. But also input for odds computation. Indeed feelings shape one’s motivations in responding to threat and in committing oneself to a chain of trust within a community. To many people repeated and wide spread unjust violence for themselves, beloved ones and the community they care for or identify with, inspire will to revenge and fear injustice will happen again or worse, if one doesn’t fight back. The bitter truth is that those who fear death will be more likely exposed to the abuses of those who fear less death. The bitter truth is that being afraid of your enemy and showing your own fear to your enemy likely don’t help much win your enemies or making him go away. And this is not just an anthropological observation but a security concern for states: if Russia can mobilize Russians MORE EASILY AND ABUNDANTLY without fear of consequences than peaceful countries can mobilise their own people to counter Russia, Russia can more easily bully peaceful countries at convenience.

Vis-a-vis Ukraine, one can simply argue that land ownership is more important than anything else and it is better to fight to the death than give-up 1m^2 of land. As I and Isaac made very clear, we obviously don't share that view. — boethius

First, you are objecting to an hypothetical argument which I didn’t make (if somebody else did, quote him). Why don’t you counter the actual arguments I made, instead of the ones you wished I made?
Second, your hypothetical argument is a rhetoric manipulation. Indeed, why is your argument FOCUSING on Ukraine? And why are you FOCUSING on square meters? Let’s apply your argument to Russia: one can simply argue that Russian soldiers are fighting to death because “land ownership is more important than anything else and it is better to fight to the death than give-up 1m^2 of land”. But Russia is already too big, actually the biggest country on earth, why the fuck would Russia even want to own 1m^2 more of land? Dagestanis, Buryaties and Chechens soldiers want for Russia to have 1m^2 more of land? Prigozhin wanted Russia to have 1m^2 more of land? Russian convicts sent to the front wanted Russia to have 1m^2 more of land? The 18 years old Russian Yermolenko wants Russia to have 1m^2 more of land? Putin wants for Russia to have 1m^2 more of land? Russian soldiers are killing and raping people, destroying their lives, sacrificing their own life so that Russia has 1m^2 more of land? Doesn’t that sound preposterous to you?
Indeed, for Russia we should talk about ”legitimate security concerns”, “Patriotic war against Ukrainian Nazis”, “hypothetical Western/American/NATO invasion of Russia from Ukraine”, RIGHT? But then why do you feel so confident in taking your hypothetical argument as representative of Ukrainians’ point of view? Why shouldn't we talk about ”Ukrainian legitimate security concerns”, “Ukrainian Patriotic war against Russian imperialism”, “hypothetical Russian invasion of Ukraine and other Western countries”?
Your shallow arguments replete with rhetoric tricks won’t get you anywhere with me.

However, even on this premise that fighting to the death for land with low odds of victory is justifiable, it does not somehow just magically justify forcing people into fighting, taking away their right to freedom of movement, taking away their right to free elections and a free press and a due process and pretty much every other right they previously had (however poorly implemented in the pervasively corrupt state of Ukraine). — boethius

As I said many times, I’m not here to fix the world. It’s arrogant or dishonest or both. I’m here to do some intellectual gymnastics (like avoid to use rhetoric tricks, explicit your premises and reasoning, provide workable definitions to improve clarity, provide your evidence and source, avoid making contradictory statements, contrast explanatory power of your beliefs vs others etc.), that’s all. And I think a philosophy forum is the best place where to do the kind of intellectual gymnastics I’m doing.

First, you didn’t quote me or anybody else claiming that “fighting to the death for land with low odds of victory is justifiable” so you seem to have a quarrel with your imaginary friend. Why don’t you counter the actual arguments I made, instead the ones you wished I made?
Second, I’m questioning your understanding of “odds” and “victory”. If your point is, given the questionable trend of Western military support (something wasn’t evident at the beginning of the war), and the worrisome trend of growing disparity of means and men between Russia and Ukraine (something wasn’t evident at the beginning of the war), it’s unlikely that Ukraine will manage to fully restore its borders as declared by the Ukrainian political leadership by military means, I find that point compelling. And I think that also Ukrainians find it compelling. I can concede that much. But FOCUSING on this to assess political intentions, failures or responsibilities of Westerners or Ukrainians overlooks geopolitical and historical reasons which I brought up and you keep ignoring.
Third, concerning the problem of “forcing people into fighting” there are compelling reasons for that. One is the civic duty to protect the country one belongs to from foreign oppression. This is legally codified in the Ukrainian constitution art. 65 (“Defence of the Motherland, of the independence and territorial indivisibility of Ukraine, and respect for its state symbols, are the duties of citizens of Ukraine”. “Citizens perform military service in accordance with the law” https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b and law includes also martial law). The other reason is security: Russia too forces reluctant people to fight and if Russia can force a percentage of its people reluctant to fight more than Ukraine can force an equal or greater percentage of people reluctant to fight, this may give a comparative advantage to Russia, even a greater advantage since Russian population is bigger. Actually, for that reason only, Ukraine has greater compelling reason to force people reluctant to fight than Russia has.

As I've said many times, if Ukrainians (the individual soldiers) were really fighting of their own choice without coercion with more-or-less correct understanding of the situation, knowing the low odds of success, then I wouldn't have much of a problem and wouldn't have much of an argument. Obviously we could still argue whether that really is a justified position or not, still argue about the strategic military choices, and so on, but if it really was a case of "Ukrainians want to fight"; the situation would be tragic but there would be little to really argue about. — boethius

Logically speaking, the claim "Ukrainians want to fight" is a generic generalisation as opposed to quantified generalisation. Generic generalisations do not specify quantity of individuals (“all”, “the absolute majority”, “the relative majority”, “71.59%”, “23 thousands”) which the claim applies to, as quantified generic claims do. Nor specify the scope (are we talking about “the Ukrainian political government”, “Ukrainian citizens”, “Ukrainian soldiers”, “Ukrainian soldiers on the front line”, etc.?).
Political debate is replete with generic generalisations. There is nothing inherently wrong with using generic generalisations, they stress what is contextually relevant in a discourse about a certain domain of individuals. But they can be equivocal, and manipulatively used to reinforce prejudices and stereotypes (e.g. immigrants steel our jobs). Therefore when I’m using them, I’m ready to add clarifications.
However, one has to keep in mind that it is LOGICALLY FALLACIOUS to take the generic generalisation "Ukrainians want to fight" as a claim about “Exactly all Ukrainian individual soldiers”.
Besides "Ukrainians want to fight" doesn’t presuppose or implicate anything about “more-or-less correct understanding” or “knowing”.

However, when the power of the state is used to corrupt people's understanding with propaganda (both Ukraine and Western governments), a flood of external and contingent (on doing what the West wants) money is bribing the elites in effective control of the state, take away people's rights, coerce them to the front lines, and the end result is massive amounts of death and suffering and nothing to show for it, then there's plenty to take issue with.

The narrative of "Ukrainians want to fight" that's brought out whenever the terrible consequences (slip through the cracks of state propaganda) is just more state propaganda to dull the senses of Westerners who step back a moment from the cheerleading and get uncomfortable with what the actual consequences of our choices are and ask obvious questions (like whether it was a good idea to rebuke Russia's offers to negotiate a liveable peace in Eastern-Europe for decades). — boethius

Besides the fact that is not clear to me on what grounds you discriminate what is propaganda and what is not (apparently to you, propaganda is just some claim politically motivated you believe to be false and whose politically motivations you oppose), the point is that accusing others of spinning propaganda you go nowhere, because each propaganda has a counter-propaganda. Here: “Russia too is bribing and used to bribe people in the West and in Ukraine too to spin the narrative you just laid out. With the mystification of Russia’s legitimate security concerns people like you are justifying Russia’s war against Ukrainians and defaming/blaming the victims to dull the senses of Westerners who step back a moment from cheerleading Russia and get uncomfortable with what the actual consequences of our choices are and ask obvious questions (like whether it was a good idea to not help more Ukraine to fight Russia)”. It’s not by labelling people’s claims as propaganda that you score points with me or prove you are not spinning your own propaganda.
That is why I’m arguing based on geopolitics and history. Not primarily on what Biden or Zelensky or Putin say. Even less on unverifiable and manifestly defamatory conspiracy theories stated as facts, as you do (and if this attitude is not a marker of nasty propaganda I don’t know what is). Even less on the self-promoting and crypto-moralistic psycho-analysis of your interlocutors. Your deconstructionist-like arguments seem really inspired by garbage philosophical reading and understanding, to me. Your arguments do not impress me AT ALL. No matter how much you repeat them.

As far as my historical argument goes, the conflict of Ukrainians and Russians has a very deep and long history. The notion of “genocide” invented by Raphael Lemkin (a Polish jew) is documented also in Lemkin’s essay, ‘Soviet Genocide in Ukraine’. The Ukrainian Neo-nazis and banderites (you were whining about) are the ideological descendants of those who sided with the Nazis to fight the Russian Soviets. To argue FOR Ukraine keeping the Soviet Nuclear arsenal as a deterrent, Mearsheimer wrote: There is the danger of hypernationalism, the belief that other nations or nation states are both inferior and threatening and must therefore be dealt with harshly. Expressions of Russian and Ukrainian nationalism have been largely benign since the Soviet collapse, and there have been few manifestations of communal hatred on either side. Nevertheless, the Russians and the Ukrainians neither like nor trust each other. The grim history that has passed between these two peoples provides explosive material that could ignite conflict between them.
Russia has dominated an unwilling and angry Ukraine for more than two centuries, and has attempted to crush Ukraine's sense of self-identity. Recent history witnessed the greatest horrors in this relationship: Stalins government murdered an astounding 12million Ukrainians during the 1930s. Though Stalin was a Georgian, and the Soviet Union was not a formally "Russian' government, Russia had predominant power within the Soviet Union, and much of the killing was done by Russians. Therefore, the Ukrainians are bound to lay heavy blame on the Russians for their vast suffering under Bolshevism. Against this explosive psychological backdrop, small disputes could trigger an outbreak of hypernationalism on either side.
Source: https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Mearsheimer-Case-for-Ukrainian-Nuclear-Deterrent.pdf
And there is nothing unique in people’s stubborn national aspirations despite averse conditions: see Palestinians, Jews, Kurds, Afghans.
So the plausibility of the claim “Ukrainians want to fight” (also despite the odds and disparity of forces) is primarily grounded on their perception of historical Russian oppression, not on corrupted elites that try to corrupt people’s understanding the odds of winning against Russia, EVEN IF THEY EXISTED. Besides Ukrainians have still wide access to international media over the internet and direct experience on the ground (from families and friends too), so I’m more confident that UKRAINIANS HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR PREDICAMENT THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY HAVE. And if despite all the available information to them, they still support the war and fight on the front line, I take their commitment to be enough popular and solid. I don’t know how long it will last though. Not surprisingly stats show some non-negligible declining after more than 2 years of conflict with Russia (https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/07/23/7466999/ ), and these stats are widely and freely accessible to Ukrainians too.

As has been repeated many times, my primary issue is with Western policy (as I'm a Westerner and I mostly affect and am responsible for Western policy) and my secondary issue is with Ukrainian policy. — boethius

Which is why you are prone to spin propaganda more likely than I am. Your contributions here are politically motivated, not mine.

If there was no coercing Ukrainians to fight, then sure, let them fight. However, considering the few Ukrainians outside of Ukraine that return to fight and the many that attempt and do leave, this narrative is simply not true. — boethius

Obviously "Ukrainians" clearly don't want to fight , else there wouldn't be press gangs forcing them to the front lines — "boethius

But I never said nor believe that there are no coercing Ukrainians to fight, quote me where I did that. I here say and claim to believe that there is a disturbing amount of coercing Ukrainians to fight. AT THE SAME TIME I here say and claim to believe that Ukrainians are willing to fight (maybe now less then before, but still). There is absolute no logic contradiction in what I said and believe.
“Ukrainians want to fight” is a generic generalisation not a universal generalisation, if you think otherwise, that’s a logical fallacy, remember? You let words like “obviously” and “clearly” replace the job that logic and actual evidence should do. At this point, what is “obvious“ and “clear” is that you are just playing rhetoric tricks to brainwash yourself.

And, obviously "Ukrainian sovereignty" is not the concern of the West or we would send our own troops to defend this important thing. — "boethius

That’s a false alternative, i.e. yet another rhetoric trick. "Ukrainian sovereignty" is a concern for Ukrainians in one sense and for the West in another because Ukraine have national interest as much as European countries. And they may converge enough. Besides, to my understanding, political and military readiness to send troops is way more problematic for the West than for Russia. And I expanded on this in many other previous posts, which you ignored, because you are just happy to repeat the Evil Satan narrative where the US decides for all, corrupts all, exploits all in the West. Indeed, Portugal and Poland do not see this conflict in the same way. Nor the US and Hungary. Nor Finland and Turkey (as part of the Western-lead defensive alliance called “NATO”). Nor populist and anti-populist Western parties or leaders. Assuming that Western and Russian politicians need enough popular consent to support sending troops to war, yet how to get such a consent is not the same for Russia or the US or Germany or Italy. Putin enjoys comparative advantages in taking more bold, coherent and fast political/economic/military decisions than the West can. Consider the pacifist culture in the West vs Russia, consider the notion of defensive-war in the West vs Russia, consider the notion of preventive war in the West vs Russia, consider the different degree of tolerance over the costs/risks of the war as felt between Westerners vs Russians, consider the different sensitivity of public opinions toward civilian casualties and war crimes in the West vs Russia. More broadly, as I’ve already argued, there is an institutional security hazard that plagues Western democracies more than anti-Western authoritarian regimes, and that’s the strategic reason for “exporting” democracy and human rights independently from humanitarian reasons.
Russia with its hostile authoritarian regime, its hegemonic motives and anti-Western pretexts is a security threat to the West, especially to Europeans, no matter how able is the West to counter Russia in Ukraine, no matter what the Great Satan says (Russians and Europeans fought many times before the US imperialism was even a thing). Even more so, if hegemonic powers as Russia are offensive security maximizer in accordance to John Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism. Even more so, if the American global hegemony is in decline and Europeans are not military/politically ready to deter Russia for good.

On a sidenote, I think people grossly underestimate the risk this war brings to the region, with which I mean Europe as a whole, western Russia and by extension China.

If the Ukrainians have well and truly left the realm of rationality, which it increasingly appears that they have, they may be instrumentalized by the US for extreme ends.

The US wants to see the region in chaos. It has a willing, desperate proxy that will fight without regard for self-preservation and that Washington can blame everything on if things get out of hand in a nuclear way.

The real risk factor here is that US has nothing to lose and much to gain in a cataclysmic conflict in Eastern Europe which it would only be indirectly involved in. It would cripple all its potential rivals on the Eurasian mainland.

Interesting view, if "things get out of hand in a nuclear way", let's blame the US as the puppet master and the Ukrainians as the puppets, and not even mention Russia as the one actually nuclear bombing the region. More than interesting, serious, a serious view on this conflict as you only are capable of.
BTW why on earth would Russia nuclear bomb the region if this not only will not hit back at the US ("US has nothing to lose") but it will greatly benefit the US ("much to gain in a cataclysmic conflict in Eastern Europe", "It would cripple all its potential rivals on the Eurasian mainland")? What strategic reasoning is forcing Putin to bomb the region so that the US will gain much and Eurasian mainland (including Russia) will be crippled?
BTW Putin has already won the war in Ukraine, right? And Ukrainians puppets can only afford stunts "just like the previous Ukrainian offensive - to show both domestic and foreign audiences that the war is not yet lost", so what are the chances of Putin bombing the region which people are grossly underestimating?

if things get out of hand in a nuclear way. — Tzeentch

If that happens, it will be because Russia uses nuclear weapons.

The Russians don't need nuclear weapons to win, nor do they benefit from such a huge escalation. Things would have to get a lot worse first for them to consider that option.

The Ukrainians on the other hand are getting desperate and irrational enough to try something like that, and the US may just be cynical enough to give them what they want. Devastation and chaos in the region is what the US is after, and it doesn't care at all about the fate of Eastern Europe. It just wants to weaken China and escalate tensions between Russia and Europe.

Nuclear escalation which it can blame on Ukraine is right up Uncle Sam's alley.

Western audiences have become so gullible and ignorant that they would believe whatever story they try to sell it under.

Not all that surprising I suppose, however concerning it may seem:

NATO’s military presence in the east of the Alliance
^{— NATO · Jul 8, 2024}
Czołgi i wozy bojowe na drogach w Wielkopolsce. Ważny komunikat armii (Polish)
Tanks and combat vehicles on the roads in Wielkopolska. Important message from the army
^{— Krzysztof Grządzielski, Milosz Balcerzak · Radio ZET · Jul 29, 2024}
US Tanks, Combat Vehicles Spotted Heading for NATO's Eastern Flank: Report
^{— Brendan Cole · Newsweek · Jul 30, 2024}
Финляндия разместит до 5000 военных НАТО у границы с Россией (Russian)
Finland to deploy up to 5,000 NATO troops near Russian border
^{— Lisa Lambrecht · Deutsche Welle · Aug 22, 2024}

Earlier, Medvedev went on another tirade, making other Kremlinians seem dull:

Medvedev urges to turn life in West into 'permanent nightmare' in response to sanctions
^{— TASS · Jun 13, 2024}

Finland to deploy up to 5,000 NATO troops near Russian border
— Lisa Lambrecht · Deutsche Welle · Aug 22, 2024 — jorndoe

This is typical "journalism" of today, from DW:

The Finnish authorities have decided to station a NATO armored brigade on the territory of this country to contain external threats. A new formation of 4,000-5,000 soldiers and officers is already being formed and will be deployed in the city of Mikkeli, located near the border with Russia, the Finnish publication Iltalehti

What the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti actually said is that an lower HQ is to be established at Mikkeli, which will start to organize the training of a brigade (in the future). And it's equipment will be forward deployed into Finland (in the future). Basically at one time, once the training starts that is, there will be deployed a battalion with a strength of 800 soldiers. That's it.

This likely will happen annually, I assume, just like the training syllabus of other formations go. Hence there won't be a permanent station of even 800 men. But I guess the HQ, about 15 to 50 people (which many likely will be Finnish officers already in Mikkeli).

That is quite different from a formation of "4,000 - 5,000 soldiers and officers is already being formed and will be deployed in the city of Mikkeli". From that you get the false impression that actually 4000 to 5000 NATO will be deployed to Finland and exist there in it's entirety all the time. Where 4000 to 5000 soldiers would be permanently housed I have no idea, as such it would be one of the largest military bases in Finland...which isn't built. :smile:

Interesting view, if "things get out of hand in a nuclear way", let's blame the US as the puppet master and the Ukrainians as the puppets, and not even mention Russia as the one actually nuclear bombing the region. — neomac

Some are here the cheerleaders for the attacker in this war. First there was no attack, just US creating hysteria over a possible attack. Then it has been a victory for Russia, case closed, for all the time. Why won't the Ukrainians simply stop and surrender because they have no chance against Russia?

Western audiences have become so gullible and ignorant that they would believe whatever story they try to sell it under. — Tzeentch

Everything is the West's fault. All the injustices that happen in the World happen because of the West.

This naive and false idea makes them believe that they're smart as they criticize the West.

This is typical "journalism" of today, from DW: — ssu

I like that as a generalizable example of how consumerist media kills reality in favour of sellable fictions.

Everything is the West's fault. All the injustices that happen in the World happen because of the West.

This naive and false idea makes them believe that they're smart as they criticize the West. — ssu

Caricatures aside, the idea that the West carries principal responsibility in this war and that the West's conduct so far has been nothing short of shameful, is an idea that is carried by a well-established group of western experts, analists and academics - a group that has done a vastly better job at predicting the course and outcome of this war than those who subscribe to the narrative that is put forward by virtually every major western media outlet. In fact, I struggle to think of a single fact that said media outlets have ever been right about.

So I'm not sure what you believe this type of posturing achieves.

You've already stated you don't wish to engage with my arguments. If you have changed your mind you may start with the post whose contents you almost fully ignored in favor of a "I'm not going to talk to you anymore!"

:up: Being written in Russian, maybe the article was targeted for Russians. Looked around, but couldn't find the original article, do you have a link handy?