Meaning pointing out US's invasion of Iraq was not an act of "defiance" does not create some situation where the "contrasting" the concepts of maverick and defiance has anything to do with anything.
You receive criticism ... can't deal with it, then move the goal posts. Obviously, you're no longer remotely arguing that Russia's breaking or not breaking international law is a justification for Western policies. — boethius
But I wasn’t talking about the American invasion of Iraq, I was talking about Russian invasion of Ukraine. To repeat it once more:
I listed facts that support that claim, like the fact that Russia didn’t halt its invasion even after a UN resolution against it as widely voted by West/NATO/US, with ensuing sanctions and continued military support to Ukraine by the West. If that’s not an act of defiance by Russia against West/NATO/US, then I don’t understand your usage of the word “defiance”: if X is warned, condemned and sanctioned by Y for a certain choice, and X knowingly pursues its choice despite of that, that’s for me enough to call X’s behavior defiant toward Y. EVEN MORE SO, if X were to question Y’s authority with “tu quoque” arguments (as you suggest with “but also the US has little respect for international law”)!!!
Your criticism doesn’t address my claim and plays with words (“maverick”, “justification”) in interpreting my original claims which weren’t using such terms. Your conceptually confused or caricatural way of rendering my claims is good to mislead or brainwash you, not me. Anyways yes the Western reaction against Russia is justified on geopolitical and legal grounds.
I point out that your argument about "defiance" is unsound and invalid, at no point does party A defying party B tell us anything about who is justified and what any of those or then third parties should do about it, and you then formulate my position as somehow contrasting maverick with defiance ... but they are compatible. Sure, you can also have the maverick defier, but that was not my statement which was just pointing out the US invasion of Iraq was not "an act of defiance” and then pointed out how your whole topsy-turvy defiance logic makes no sense.
Which you've entirely abandoned, formulating your position as very clearly support for US hegemony. — “boethius
First, in your blablabla is not clear to me what argument you claim as being invalid and unsound (the piece you quote is not my argument, but arguably Isaac's), so first show the argument of mine you are objecting to, then show why it is invalid, then show why it is unsound. Second, I didn't express myself the way you report "A defying party B tell us anything about who is justified". Third, you said I committed a strawman before making the distinction between maverick and defiant attitude [1], and what follows doesn’t prove that my objection to Isaac’s argument from the post you cite was a strawman wrt Isaac’s argument, it just offers another argument which is supposed to somehow save Isaac’s argument. However Isaac’s argument as it is formulated remains fallacious or inconclusive as I claimed. Four, your distinction between maverick and defiant is a diversion from what I was talking about, and it's irrelevant wrt what I originally claimed (it doesn't matter only who transgresses international law, but also against whom the transgression has been committed, especially if it looks like an insubordination from a minor power to a greater power), so why on earth would I let you drag me into a dispute grounded on a misunderstanding? Five, I didn’t abandon anything, it’s you who is progressively discovering how poor your understanding of my claim was and still is.
Anyways feel free to brainwash yourself into believing otherwise. Along with your sidekick. As I said, it's pathetic but expected. Fun fact is that even in two you can't manage to build a decent objection.
No, when we say you've moved the goal posts to something trivial, the triviality maybe true, but that doesn't support your position.
You have a bunch of elements in an argument that doesn't support your position: we point that out and then you move the goal posts to focusing on just one element, such as "defiance", or then just generalising your argument into a tautology which you quite clearly didn't say, but very clearly said something specific but unfortunately unsupported. — boethius
You and your sidekick focused on the word “defiance” from a comment of mine addressed to another interlocutor and for reasons apparently evident to you both, and yet when I questioned you both you are incapable of making a point without rephrasing in a caricatural or confused way my claims. Besides you are no credible referee nor credible reporter of our past exchanges. So I don’t see the point of such preposterous summaries other then offering cues to your sidekick to parrot.
BTW my claimes are "trivialities" or "tautologies" or "both"? Quote 2 trivialities/tautologies I claimed, and quote the claims expressing my position which the trivialities/tautologies I claimed later were moving from.
Do you just not remember what you've already written and what we've been discussing?
And the problem I see is that Russia doesn't simply want to take a piece of land from Ukraine, but it wants to do it expressly in defiance and at the expense of the West/NATO/US: starting with the violation of international law till aiming at establishing a new World Order in alliance with at least two other authoritarian regimes (China and Iran) [1]. — neomac
Clearly your position at the time can be summarised as Russia defying international law, the West/NATO/US therefore needing to apply that law somehow, and to make things more abundantly clear "violation of international law" is another way to say "defiance of international law”. — boethius
NO, IT CAN’T be summarised in the way you rephrased it. I wrote
in defiance and at the expense of the West/NATO/US not
in defiance of international law. I get that the expression “Russia defying international law” is useful for your and your sidekick’s preposterous counterargument. But that’s NOT what I said. So it was you who tried to generalise my argument into a dumb claim about international law violations and arbitrarily conflating it into international law defiance. And that's why you committed a fallacious strawman argument against me! But once you realised how dumb your counterargument is, you started accusing me of shifting subjects to “tautologies” (do you know what “tautology” means? Explain that to me!) which you must agree with. How pathetic is that.
So you're saying something that is of "practical rationality" to do would not be justified to do it? Why would it being both practical and rational to do ... not therefore be a justification to do it?
How is "practical rationality" anything other than a pseudo-intellectual bullshit way of saying "justification".
If I ask why you did something and you answered with the practical and rational reasons for doing it, how is that not you justifying your actions with those reasons? — “boethius
I clarified what I mean by “practical rationality” as applied to geopolitics:
rational geopolitical agents must (logical requirement) effectively link geopolitical means to geopolitical goals.. While we could use the word “justification” to refer to practical rationality, one could use it also to refer to “moral justification” and “legal justification”. For that reason, there is a risk of conflation between three different cases of justification, and that’s why I didn’t use it. Since you didn’t clarify the way you use the notion of “justification” I’m not sure we share the same usage, nor I’m sure that you are not conflating different meanings (indeed, I suspect you conflate different meanings). In any case I do not feel compelled to use your wording to express my ideas.
Again, so if Russia wins the "struggle" over Ukraine then it's actions were justified all along and Ukraine just picked the wrong side since 2014?
You're only substantive criticism of Russia seems to be they haven't won yet ... but the US hasn't won this struggle yet either. “Might is right" is not a slogan, it's just exactly what you are describing: if the US can dominate Russia in this confrontation then it should do so, which of course exact same thing applies to Russia dominating Ukraine. — boethius
See how you reframe all my claims with terms I didn’t use, to make claims I didn’t make, while ignoring my other contextual claims or subsequent clarifications, and despite the fact that I complained about such approach several times?
My claim is more like this: if the US has valid reasons to perceive Russia as a security threat and has effective means to repel such threat, then it’s rational for the US to act accordingly. As it is doing.
The claim “might is right" is conceptually confused or misleading, it doesn't sound anything but a slogan to me. I could never use it to express my beliefs.
Nothing is preventing anyone here arguing the cost is worth it. No one in the West hesitates to argue the cost to defeat Hitler was worth it. Sometimes great causes have great costs.
Of course, in the case of WWII the people arguing the cost was worth it actually sent their own soldiers to fight and share that cost. Saying the cost to Ukraine is worth it for our policies, such as not needing to "win" just damage Russia a lot, is quite clearly a cynical exploitation of Ukraine for our own ends.
However, nothing stops anyone from arguing the cynical exploitation and manipulation of Ukraine for our own ends is justifiable, that we will save more lives in the long run in the Baltics and Poland.
However, my question is not some "conceptual framework" that makes sense to reject. If you advocate some goal, such as in this case harming the Russians, "what would be a reasonable cost to attain that goal?" is just common sense. Obviously you wouldn't sacrifice every single American to harm one Russian soldiers knee ... so between that and achieve your objective at the cost of a cup of coffee there obviously some zone of acceptable cost (to the US, to NATO, to Ukraine) which you're comfortable with.
It's simply a common sense question to participants who reject a negotiated peace and any essentially any compromise whatsoever, what cost to Ukraine they think would be worthwhile in refusing to compromise. Would 300 000 lives be worth it to conquer Crimea? Is clearly a reasonable question. Of course, people can argue that 300 000 lives wouldn't be worth it, but it can be conquered with some amount of lives that is worth it. However, to be an honest participant in this debate one should be able to answer such simple questions.
That the questions simply point to a total incoherence, ignorance and Russophobia underpinning your position doesn't somehow make these simple questions as part of some "conceptual framework" that can be rejected. — boethius
I argued against such putative “simple questions” a while ago. They are not simple, they are simplistic. In other words, I find them conceptually flawed.
Like who? The Baltic states? Poland? Germany?
And in what conditions and scenario does Russia just start invading East-ward?
Also, if Russia can do what you say here, doesn't that just make them the Hegemon? — boethius
All the alleged reasons that pushed Russia against the West (NATO expansion, Russophobia, protection of Russian minorities, existential threat, securing strategic military assets like in Crimea) may still be exploitable in the future once Russia recovers enough to pursue its geopolitical ambitions and if circumstances are more favourable (e.g. a US more isolationist toward Europe, China more supportive toward Russia) that could be a problem for unprepared westerners. But it’s not on me to figure out future plausible geopolitical scenarios and security threats from an authoritarian, expansionist and anti-Western Russia, I’m not a geopolitical analyst. I just read them.
You say this question of cost is both dumb and emotional/moral blackmail ... while stating you already answered this question literally a few sentences later:
Is the cost to Ukraine of such a policy morally acceptable?
— boethius
I answered yes and argued for it a while ago. It was among my first posts to the thread. — boethius
Right. Indeed, also on that occasion I criticised the conceptual framework of my interlocutor who was wondering the same questions and supports your views. I'll let you guess who he was.
[1]
What's the purpose of "defiance" in your strawman here? — boethius
Why strawman? — neomac