Irrespective of GDP - putting that aside, the money the US spends on the military is absurd. Anything Russia or China do pales in comparison to what the US does when it comes to spending. I do not see a good justification for it at all. — Manuel

Until you provide a reliable accounting model estimating how much military budget the US must spend wrt its security goals and geopolitical ambitions better than the impression the comparison between Russia/China military expenditure vs the US military expenditure has on you, your judgement doesn't sound that persuasive to me.

So are you saying that you support the West or no? Based on this comment, I think you sound like a West is good (or least bad) type of person. — Manuel

I'm not here to reason through slogans. But, as I said, we can't likely hope to be more than polarised political "meme" vectors in the geopolitical arena..

What I would add, is that I don't think we have good reasons to believe Russia will come out of this war in good shape. It has a population problem, it's economy is far from being optimally used, without even considering the effects of the sanctions long-term. — Manuel

"Not in good shape" sounds good, "not likely be a security threat to the West for another couple of decades at least" sounds better.

None of this nonsensical verbiage alleviates your error. You said that...

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 — neomac


How is it a problem that Russia are violating international law, when America clearly violates international law all the time? — Isaac

What error are you blabbering about? Why nonsensical? Why "clearly"?
First, if you are talking about international law, it should be a resolution within international law to establish what constitutes its violation.
Second, when I talked about international law violation by Russia I'm talking about this:
UN responses to Russian invasion
See also: Reactions to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine § Intergovernmental and international organizations, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2623, and United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1
On 26 February 2022, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for Russia to immediately cease its attack on Ukraine. China, India, and the United Arab Emirates abstained from the vote; the 11 remaining members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution.[39][40] Days later, a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian invasion was passed with an overwhelming 141–5 vote majority, with 35 nations abstaining.[41]
Among other statements, the General Assembly resolution called upon Russia to abide by the UN Charter and the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations.[41] The Declaration on Friendly Relations says that assisting a rebel group in another nation would threaten the target country's "territorial integrity," and that states have a duty to refrain from engaging in such actions.[42]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
Third, I didn't claim that the US didn't commit international law violations, I simply claimed that Russia did.
Four, the international law violations I'm interested in must be related to the THE PROBLEM I SEE : "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". So OBVIOUSLY I'm interested in the violations committed by Russia against West/NATO/US.

How do you like our disagreement, Pollyanna?

The preservation of truth includes the preservation of falsity. — creativesoul — creativesoul

What?!

How exactly is "there is a cow in the field" valid? — creativesoul

You are evidently confused. In the quoted claims of mine the word "valid" is taken as qualifying "justification" (not "assertion")

Evidently, the above is not true in standard formal logic. My error. Good thing none of my objections to Gettier require it to be. — creativesoul

Sure, dude, whatever makes you happy.

Is this an objection to my post? If so, that's a strawman argument since you are suggesting that I believe "the West is a power for good for the rest of the world" which thing I never stated nor believe. On the other side, if you are simply suggesting that I believe "the West is a power for good" because I'm living in the West where is the objection? You yourself claimed: "Which it mostly only is when you actually live there".
In any case, I never stated such a slogan "the West is a power for good" nor I would express myself in such terms. — neomac


So the West should lose then? — Benkei

What?! Is that a logic inference, dude?

Here's the US attitude to 'international law' - From https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/americas/the-u-s-makes-a-mockery-of-treaties-and-international-law/ — Isaac

So what? First of all American violations, withdrawals, refusal to ratify or to sign, undermining of international law that your piece of propaganda has comfortably summarised, however concerning from a geopolitical point of view or eventually legitimate in terms of principles, are often alleged by authoritarian States which themselves have being accused of analogous behaviour, or for American domestic political competition (see the concerns about Trump’s administration attitude toward international law for example). Secondly, and most importantly, International Law is a dimension of geopolitics, so the attitude of ALL geopolitical players toward it will realistically serve geopolitical goals as bluntly clarified by John Bolton in his extended quote [1]. So more important of the attitude of the US toward international law is all other players (allies and enemies) attitude toward the US. Third, I’m siding with the US not because I think the US is good nor because I think the US is good for the West, but because I think Russia or China would be worse than the US for the West if they managed to extend their hegemonic influence at the expense of the American hegemony in the West. So until there is a better alternative for the Westerners in the foreseeable future, I would find more reasonable to partner with the US than to partner with Russia or China.
Do you enjoy our disagreement, Pollyanna?



[1]
There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/19374/

What are you including in the west? — Manuel

I would include North America, EU, UK, Norway most certainly.

They are constantly overspending on the military, no matter who gets in power. — Manuel

“Overspending” in what sense? Not wrt their GDP. As by comparison with other countries, in an age of great power competition we may reasonably expect that the American military spending can grow more likely than decrease to at least preserve their overwhelming military superiority. Yet that’s not enough to think that the American commitment to the security of the West won’t change. Besides if there is a military clash between the US and Russia is more likely going to happen in Europe than in the US (as the Ukrainian war is reminding us of). So I’d find more reasonable to hit an expansionist Russia as hard as possible when it’s in a weaker position, than wait for Russia to recover and give it another try in the future just for the fun of it.

Anything beyond 5 years is way too much speculation in my view. We don't know what will happen. — Manuel

Yet that’s what I take strategic thinking in geopolitics to be all about. Even the demographic crisis that China is expected to face - as you were talking about and you didn’t calculate by yourself, I guess - doesn’t concern the next 5 years, right? If you feel dispensed from engaging in such kind of speculation like anticipating potentially hostile competitors’ moves far before they could actually happen, States will do it at your place anyways and likely much better than you could ever possibly afford because they have means and that’s necessary for their own survival.

I don't even know how to reply to this, because it looks to me so, so far removed from actual possibility. There's been talk - for some time now - of the whole "decline of the American Empire" and so on. — Manuel

What is "far removed from actual possibility”? I’m talking about things that happened and are happening. Besides the West is not just the US.

First of all, this overlooks a crucial problem for China: drastic declining population numbers. This is going to severely affect economic output. — Manuel

Demographic dynamics are one aspect of the problem sure. But a part from the fact that it would be more useful to compare demographic trends of Russia and China wrt the Western countries, considering that now the Rest is ~7B vs the West ~1B (that the difference could grow in the future, see Africa and India), and that authoritarian regimes are trying to extend their sphere of influence particularly in the Rest of the world (according to which - somebody could say - the West "it's been mostly shit" [cit.]), the demographic trends won’t be in favour of the West for the foreseeable future.

But the main point to me anyway, is to ask, how many military bases does the US have around the world? Around 750.
How many does Russia have? 20. What about China? 1. That makes a grand total of 21 military bases vs 750 — Manuel

Now is the case, but how about the future? Considering the growing military buildup of authoritarian regimes (that at this point doesn’t concern anymore only land and maritime control but also space control), the American temptation to reduce their military commitment around the world (due to the costs of maintaining such bases, the pressure of isolationist trends to the point of even having a anti-NATO presidential administration partnering with Putin, and deep unresolved domestic politics issues), and other Western countries weaknesses in military capabilities and mindset (many Westerners are scared to think of a military confrontation with Russia), your observation doesn’t sound all that reassuring at all. Besides military security is not the only issue. There is also economic and political security. Russian attempts to destabilise Western politics through lobby, cyber-warfare and undercover alliance (like with Hungary and Serbia) are already severely insidious and can likely continue in the future. As well as the Russian capacity of threatening economic security by destabilising the market of commodities like for wheat and gas (among others) can likely continue in the future.
Most importantly, it’s precisely because the West didn’t consider Russia or China a security threat that Russia and China could grow richer in 30 years of Western-led globalisation and support their hegemonic ambitions at the expense of the West. It’s after 22 years of economic partnership with the West and Western complacency with Putin’s expansionism in Ukraine since 2014, that Putin could likely feel encouraged to push further his hegemonic agenda.

↪Manuel
That entire post is build on the predicate that the West is a power for good. Which it mostly only is when you actually live there. For the rest of the world it's been mostly shit. — Benkei

Is this an objection to my post? If so, that's a strawman argument since you are suggesting that I believe "the West is a power for good for the rest of the world" which thing I never stated nor believe. On the other side, if you are simply suggesting that I believe "the West is a power for good" because I'm living in the West where is the objection? You yourself claimed: "Which it mostly only is when you actually live there".
In any case, I never stated such a slogan "the West is a power for good" nor I would express myself in such terms.

You preposterously chopped my quotation ( Valid deductions preserve truth, if premises are true ) to suggest a contradiction which doesn't exist. How pathetic is that?!

In logic, specifically in deductive reasoning, an argument is valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false.[1] It is not required for a valid argument to have premises that are actually true,[2] but to have premises that, if they were true, would guarantee the truth of the argument's conclusion. Valid arguments must be clearly expressed by means of sentences called well-formed formulas (also called wffs or simply formulas).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(logic)

Either it's not a valid deduction or valid deductions do not preserve truth. — creativesoul

Well then you are unfamiliar with standard logic:

Validity of deduction is not affected by the truth of the premise or the truth of the conclusion. The following deduction is perfectly valid:

All animals live on Mars.
All humans are animals.
Therefore, all humans live on Mars.

The problem with the argument is that it is not sound. In order for a deductive argument to be sound, the argument must be valid and all the premises must be true.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(logic)


However, an argument can be valid without being sound. For example:

All birds can fly.
Penguins are birds.
Therefore, penguins can fly.

This argument is valid as the conclusion must be true assuming the premises are true. However, the first premise is false. Not all birds can fly (for example, penguins). For an argument to be sound, the argument must be valid and its premises must be true.[2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness


If you ignore or refuse standard logic, let's leave it at that. I'm not here for keep a record of your intellectual failures.

Which is why I said that this situation in Ukraine now bears little (save superficial) resemblance to Afghanistan.

Yes, they will need to consider what would be a fair deal to them, as well as to Russia. It won't be trivial, but it must be done. — Manuel

You switched back to what the Ukrainians want. But we wanted to consider all other players too. Russia is not the only other player. There is also the West front supporting Ukraine, and the Rest front supporting Russia or trying to remain neutral. 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]. Besides Russia is capable to blackmail the West (and the rest of the world) with wheat and gas supply (among others), threaten it with nuclear weapons, fund pro-Russian lobbies in the West, conduct cyber-warfare against Western facilities/institutions and project military assets in Africa, Middle East and Mediterranean sea through the Black Sea (basically encircling Europe), while increasing Putin's authoritarian regime and spiking Russian budget for military expenditure [2] with the money earned during Putin's 20 years of happy business with the West, instead of investing this money to improve and widen system of rights, education and welfare for his people.
So I do not see how exactly letting Russia get what it wants expressly out of fear of Russia under the eyes all other authoritarian challengers of the West is to the best interest of the West (if you care for the West, of course).
Do you have any ideas about this issue? Maybe we can try see things from a different perspective: maybe it's not simply that the West is helping the Ukrainians but also that the Ukrainians are helping the West.

[1]
https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/vladimir-putin-meets-with-members-of-the-valdai-club/
http://clcr.over-blog.com/article-putin-s-munich-speech-93308395.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/14/china/xi-putin-meeting-sco-summit-analysis-intl-hnk/index.htmlhttps://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/analysis/towards-asian-geopolitical-alliance
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/07/28/the-axis-of-russia-iran-and-china-birth-of-a-new-world-order/

[2]
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1203160/military-expenditure-russia/

Russia risks becoming ungovernable and descending into chaos
https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2022/11/18/russia-risks-becoming-ungovernable-and-descending-into-chaos

As far as I'm concerned something like "moral ground" just defines a set of conditions. The debate is about what sorts of conditions belong in that set. If I pre-define the set, then the conditions which belong in it become a matter of mere accordance with that (my) definition. A fairly boring exercise in consistency - we might as well be doing maths. The interesting discussion is in the disagreements about the definition (about what belongs in that set) and the reasons for believing in those criteria. — Isaac

If you want to have a fair intellectual debate on matter of morality you have to be ready to explicit your own set of conditions and your own reasons for believing them to others as well. Otherwise your interlocutor has no compelling reason to find your interest in their views or questioning their views intellectually challenging (even more so if you do not care about consistency). This becomes evident when you frame a problem within your idiosyncratic set of assumptions which others do not necessarily share and then you complain that they keep dodging your questions based on such assumptions (like "How many lives is that region's choice of governance worth?") precisely for that reason.

And if you are interested in the disagreement then why you write comments such as the following?

This is why I like discussing with you. You never fail to disappoint. — Isaac

So that's our uniformed, pointless analyses done. How dull. — Isaac

Now we've got past the pointless repetitions of the mere fact that they're probably going to fight and into the matter of interest - on what moral grounds ought they fight?

Do they have a moral right to some piece of geography? If so, did Russia have a similar moral right to Chechnya?

Do they have a moral duty to fight aggressors? If so, then why do we not? Why is NATO not there too?

Do they have a moral right to respond as they see fit? If so, does that autonomy extend to Pro-Russian elements in Crimea and Donbas? — Isaac

If you do not clarify what you consider "moral ground" vs "non-moral ground" and "moral right" vs "non-moral right", "moral duty" vs "non-moral duty" and there is no convergence in the usage of such notions, you and your interlocutor will inadvertently talk past each other. Examples may be very helpful in clarifying things: e.g. "If someone comes to take what's your by force, it seems fair use equal force to retain it". Here is mine "if someone comes to take what's legitimately yours by force, it seems fair to use all force it's necessary to retain it if not more to deter or disable the robber, or even other potential robbers from trying to do it again".

if you fall in line with Western Propaganda (US, EU, British, Australian), you are being brave, support democracy and are against dictatorship.
If you disagree and think this war should end now, then one is a Putin Supporter and a sympathizer for dictators. — Manuel

I think that polarization is inevitable as well as the risk of being perceived by other interlocutors as serving somebody else's political agenda (implicitly or explicitly). The reason is that we are part of a competitive game (at all levels) that is bigger than us and the endgame will impact all of us. So whatever nuance and impartiality one may want to put in their own views, it is likely going to get lost in the process of collective choice making. In other words, we can reason and analyse geopolitical conflicts of such magnitude for the intellectual fun of it (or for moral concerns?) in a forum but in the end we can't likely hope to be more than polarised political "meme" vectors in the geopolitical arena.

By now the Palestinian cause is widely recognized, up until the mid-early 2000's, if you supported Palestine, you were a terrorist sympathizer. Do they have a chance to get a two-state solution? Israel is uninterested and is instead stealing everything of value in the West Bank. What options do they have? They could try and change Israeli society from the inside through the Arab parties - unlikely to happen but it's an option.

Or they could keep forcing for a two-state solution, which is what is recognized by international law. Regardless of how they act, they will be killed, as can be seen almost every day in Israeli news. It makes sense for them to get a state, if only to be able to live a semi normal life.

The Kurds have been betrayed by everybody at one point or another. They do have a quite advanced society, which merits autonomy. Will they get it? Who knows. These topics deserve whole threads not brief comments. — Manuel

The reason why I cited those examples (along with the Afghan case) is because you claimed: As I see it, by arguing that Russia will end up with a portion (if not all of it) of the seized territory, it is pointless to let civilians die with no realistic hope of retaining such lands. The story of those people fighting for their "claimed" land for generations shows that their motivation and endurance is not weakened by to the kind of reasoning that makes you think their fight is pointless. And Ukrainians may show analogous motivation and endurance wrt the Russians, no matter how much land Russia has currently annexed nor to what extent it has military means to preserve it.

But on to the important issue, what was there in Afghanistan than the Soviet Union cared enough about such that they would resort to nuclear war? Did "the West" sanction the Soviet Union for going into Afghanistan? Did the West say that victory for them means that the Soviet Union cannot win this war?

Was the global economy in a fritz because of Soviet war in Afghanistan?

No - these are quite different times. The stakes are much higher in all respects. — Manuel

You are moving from what is at stake for Afghans (which is relevant to guide our expectations about their behavior and prospects of success), to what is at stake for all other players. So I’d say we concur on a couple of points: first, if we want to better assess the relevance of a conflict for us we should move from the stakes of one player to the stakes of all other players directly and indirectly impacted by such conflict (including us). Second, the Ukrainian conflict risks to become a more open & direct confrontation between Russia and the West than the Afghan proxy war because Russia has annexed Ukrainian territories [1].
Therefore I wouldn’t talk just about what Ukrainians want and can achieve at the expense of Russia, but also about what the West wants and can achieve at the expense of Russia.


[1] FYI, concerning Western sanctions against the USSR for the soviet aggression in Afghanistan, you can read here: http://www.americanstudies.history.knu.ua/en/archive/11-2/2021-11-kovalkov/

I reject the rules of entailment because, as Gettier showed, we can use them to go from a belief that cannot be true to a belief that is. Logical/valid argument/reasoning preserves truth. — creativesoul

Evidently you have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Valid deductions preserve truth, if premises are true, but that doesn't require nor imply that premises must be true! Indeed, valid deductions can very well conclude with true propositions (expressing beliefs) from false propositions (expressing beliefs)! Here is the example:
P1: All dogs are trees
P2: All trees are mammals
C: All dogs are mammals
This is a VALID DEDUCTION and the CONCLUSION IS TRUE, yet BOTH PREMISES ARE FALSE. Evidently you ignore the distinction between valid and sound deduction. And you want to discuss Gettier? Embarrassing.

BTW, since you keep dodging questions:

Still waiting for you to clarify how and why you changed your views or the way you present them. — neomac

Slantchev's blog (https://slantchev.wordpress.com/) is plenty of good reads against the pundits (e.g. Mearshemier, Walt, Kupchan) cited by the pro-Russians. Among others.

The issue you are pointing to, namely sacrificing "people for an uncertain... outcome", is less problematic from a narrative perspective, because they are fighting against an aggressor for dignity's sake. — Manuel

What does dignity have to do with land to you? Consider the case of, Kurds and Palestinians, they are fighting against much greater regional foreign powers for having a land internationally acknowledged to them and sovereign (which never happened) for generations. Do they have any chance to win for something they "never" had? How many lives is their fight worth?

As I see it, by arguing that Russia will end up with a portion (if not all of it) of the seized territory, it is pointless to let civilians die with no realistic hope of retaining such lands — Manuel

The ~9 year Soviet-Afghan war caused between 6.5%–11.5% of Afghanistan's 1979 population of 13.5 million is estimated to have perished in the conflict. The war caused grave destruction in Afghanistan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War) what were the chances for the Afghans to win a war against the second strongest army in the world of a state with nuclear weapons? What was that chance at the beginning of the war, in the middle of the war, and by the end of the war? Finally the Soviet Union withdraw and the Soviets' failure in the war is thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War)

The Russians invade (see? we told you! NATO is to blame), Russia captures nearly a third of Ukraine (Kyiv in 3 days, let Putin have it!), Russia stalls (don’t help Ukraine, we are prolonging the war), Ukraine goes on the counter-offensive (Putin is being backed into a corner! let him have Ukraine or else… NUKES!), Russia annexes Ukrainian territory (Putin is now committed and will never back down, let’s not escalate this), Russia mobilizes (see! escalation! we warned you! Ukraine will lose!), Ukraine liberates Kherson (Putin is losing, and therefore is even more dangerous now than ever, let him have Ukraine), Ukrainian missile accidentally strays into Poland (there it is, the escalation is here! risks! we must be careful… and let Putin have Ukraine).
https://slantchev.wordpress.com/2022/11/17/it-does-not-matter-what-happens-putin-must-be-given-a-slice-of-ukraine-walt-in-fp/

You wrote:

my "side" is effectively saying that Ukraine is going to have to give up more land. That's not a palatable view, but I happen to think it is the least harmful one. — Manuel

My question is: why do you think that "Ukraine is going to have to give up more land" is not a palatable view? Don't you think that "Ukraine is going to have to sacrifice more lives to have a chance of regaining lands" is not a palatable view either? Yet Ukrainians seem to find sacrificing or risking their people's life for an uncertain but desirable outcome (namely fighting to free their lands) more palatable than conceding lands. So what is making conceding lands instead of sacrificing people to free lands so unpalatable?

That's not a palatable view — Manuel

Why do you think it's not a palatable view?

"there is a cow in the field" is justified because you equivocate and/or abuse the term "valid". — creativesoul

I find your objections intelligible as farts, dude. As I stated, mine is just a proposal which must be judged on its own merit (consistency and explanatory/analytic power to say the least) not as a terminological issue. Indeed, I'm neither confusing my extended usage (valid/sound justification) with the standard usage (valid/sound deduction), nor violating the standard usage (i.e. I claimed nowhere that a deduction is valid when the standard usage claims it's not), so where on earth is the equivocation or the abuse exactly? Can you spell it out?
Concerning its analytic power, my proposal identifies and fixes an ambiguity in the standard usage of "justification" (e.g. does a misperception justify or not a certain belief? Justification with or without no false lemma? What is a partial justification?) by comparison to the standard and unambiguous distinction between valid and sound deduction, and this in turn clarifies where Gettier examples go wrong (they are grounded on a standard yet ambiguous understanding of "justification").
If we do not converge in the way we frame the problem, starting with clarifying the notion of "justification" which you never did, there is no chance we'll understand each other.

BTW,

Still waiting for you to clarify how and why you changed your views or the way you present them. — neomac

I'm not playing this "let's wait a few pages and then pretend there's no citations" game. — Isaac

That's the game I'm playing: link the source you quote (if available online). And I couldn't find such a link from your previous posts.

"world renowned" Swift analysts put that "not high" probability at 4%. — Isaac

Link to the source ?

What part of "Why the ellipsis?" is no clear?

in terms of probability, the probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine, to include what they claim is Crimea…is not high — Milley — Isaac

Why the ellipsis?
"The probability of a Ukrainian military victory - defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they claim as Crimea - the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily,"

:up:

There is no deduction or inference or conclusion since these concepts for me apply more appropriately between propositions, not between perceptions and propositions! — neomac


..these cognitive abilities constitute a VALID justification for his perceptual belief (because they are relatively reliable), but not a SOUND justification for his perceptual belief though (because in that specific case they failed). — neomac


Gibberish. One the one hand, you claim there is no inference, deduction, or conclusion possible between mistaking cloth for cow and the assertion "there is a cow in the field", and then call that assertion 'valid' despite just openly admitting that it is not even capable of being so. — creativesoul

You are evidently confused. In the quoted claims of mine the word "valid" is taken as qualifying "justification" (not "assertion") for a perceptual belief as contrasted to "sound" justification (not "assertion") and by analogy with the distinction of valid/sound deduction (not "assertion").

Validity and soundness are qualities, characteristics, and/or features of logical arguments, reasoning, and such. — creativesoul

The distinction valid/sound I'm expressly referring to is related to deduction. Then I'm proposing to extend the current usage of the distinction valid/sound from deduction to other cognitive tasks by analogy.
Here is my proposal (for the third time):

• I think "justification" is a normative term, not a descriptive one. Additionally, justificatory practices vary depending on the genesis of a belief and they have different degrees of reliability (which also means that we distinguish "valid" from "sound" applications). Since our beliefs are fallible, our knowledge and justificatory claims are fallible as well
• since the distinction between justification+"no false lemma" and justification-"no false lemma" looks analogous to the distinction between sound and valid deduction, we could simply talk about sound vs valid justification depending on the context. So in the case of the farmer's false belief, we could say he is validly justified in believing that there is a cow, but not soundly justified. And only the latter case can be called knowledge .

Still waiting for you to clarify how and why you changed your views or the way you present them.

Compare this to a company guaranteeing your computer will turn on. If it doesn't, you have legal recourse for damages and can sue this company. Could Ukraine sue the US for not keeping a promise? — boethius

Of course, if there is an adequate legal codification behind the "security guarantees". Yet that doesn't imply that there will be justice to Ukrainian satisfaction. But this happens also within legal systems where individuals are suing e.g. big companies which have the material resources and political ties to grant them impunity. That doesn't make such legal system an ornament either.
Besides the "security guarantees" may involve European parties too, not only the US.
The main problem with your view is that talking about certainty independently from geopolitical and historical considerations is pointless. Nothing that geopolitical actors can work with. The reason why you are blabbering about it is because you likely want to argue that Ukrainian demands for security guarantees are irrational. Indeed how can a State rationally rely on something that is ornamental, with zero meaning and equates to a cheap/hypocritical flatus vocis like "trust us bro" that any random boethius can endlessly troll anybody about?
That's precisely how dumb your dialectic strategy is.

the "Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances" is very assuring indeed ... but if you actually read it, the actual real substance doesn't seem too assuring at all and didn't actually happen when the time came to "assure" Ukraine about the promises made. — boethius

First, the violation of the Budapest Memorandum is taken into account [1] to condemn Russian violation of international laws (which justifies sanctions and military support to Ukraine). Second, as I have already explained "security guarantees" are precisely contrasted with "security assurances", because the nature of the commitment would be much more costly for those who are engaging in it, legally speaking as well: The Budapest Memorandum was negotiated at political level, but it is not entirely clear whether the instrument is devoid entirely of legal provisions. It refers to assurances, but unlike guarantees, it does not impose a legal obligation of military assistance on its parties. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum) Third, the historical circumstances for the Budapest Memorandum were different from the ones we are living now and the purpose of the Memorandum as well is different from the one addressed by the security guarantees: "Scholars assumed at the time that Ukraine's decision to sign the Budapest Memorandum was proof of Ukraine's development as a democracy and its desire to step away from the post-Soviet world and make first steps toward a European future. For 20 years, until the 2014 Russian military occupation of regions of Ukraine,[50] the Ukrainian nuclear disarmament was an exemplary case of nuclear non-proliferation. " (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum)

Anyways West/NATO/US and Ukraine understanding of what is at stake geopolitically speaking will determine what form of military cooperation [2] must be implemented at the expense of Russia as long as Russia is perceived as a non-negligible threat to the West. So is it rational for Zelensky to pursue security guarantees or equivalent, and for us to believe that some form of security guarantees will be implemented? Given the current circumstances, it's more rational than believing the opposite based on fictional scenarios, or on the preposterous idea that such agreements are ornamental.

I would take you more seriously if you could convincingly argue that the West/NATO/US has actually lost interest/resources or will likely lose interest/resources to support Ukraine against Russia. Alas, it's not the case.

[1]
We the Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) are appalled by and condemn the large-scale military aggression by the Russian Federation against the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, directed partly from Belarusian soil. This unprovoked and completely unjustified attack on the democratic state of Ukraine was preceded by fabricated claims and unfounded allegations. It constitutes a serious violation of international law and a grave breach of the United Nations Charter and all commitments Russia entered in the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris and its commitments in the Budapest Memorandum. We as the G7 are bringing forward severe and coordinated economic and financial sanctions. We call on all partners and members of the international community to condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, and raise their voice against this blatant violation of the fundamental principles of international peace and security.
https://uk.ambafrance.org/G7-condemns-Russian-invasion-of-Ukraine

[2]
Security guarantees come from two main sources: 1) collective security organizations (NATO is the most greatest example) and 2) bilateral defence treaties (for example, Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea, The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the United States of America etc.).
Security guarantees are usually defined in the text of a treaty as a duty “to come to one`s defense when it faces external aggression”. In comparison, security assurances are commonly contained in other international legal acts and are expressed in terms of a promise “to provide cooperation and aid (or “assistance”) in case of aggression”. That means that security guarantees impose much stronger obligation, than assurances do, because they are inferred from the source of international law – an international treaty (subject to Art. 38 of IC Charter).
This guarantee means the guarantor’s direct participation in protection of recipient’s national security. Therefore it is usually accompanied by the deployment of guarantor’s armed forces (or assurer) on the recipient’s territory, by creation of joint military headquarters and joint armed squads/units etc.
https://www.academia.edu/16541504/Legal_Notion_of_the_Terms_Security_Assurances_Security_Guarantees_and_Reassurances_in_International_Security_Law

You are literally describing how the word "guarantee" doesn't literally mean "guarantee" ... as why would it be a guarantee in any sense of certainty. — boethius

Guarantee in a sense of certainty doesn't exist anywhere with the reliability of a physical law or mathematical truth. "Guarantee" just expresses a formal commitment to act in a certain way. In geopolitics the nature of the "security guarantee" commitment under discussion is to be distinguished from "security assurance" because the nature of military cooperation should be much more substantial in the former case (comparable to NATO membership). That is the only sense that is relevant for geopolitical reasoning.

Can we count on these "guarantees": of course not! Don't be silly! is your new position. — boethius

Not new, liar. It's simply what is left of your preposterous position to hang on because for all the rest you have capitulated already. You need badly to attribute it "zero meaning" because it probably helps you question the rationality of Zelensky's demands. But you are failing in doing so. Badly.

Again, you may have "bro trends" or bro leverage or other broformation particular to the broverse in which you base your decision to trust your bros. But is the bro code 100% reliable, "guaranteed" in any meaningful sense. Alas, t'is not. — boethius

Since you can't quote literally any parties to support your claim, you invent your own fictional evidences. You look so dumb, bro.

You went from "pre-condition" to "rational requirement" to "considering the nuclear deterrence they both had" ... that I remind you "Ukraine doesn't have!" but apparently that had no relation to your original use of the word "pre-condition". — boethius

Good summary of your neverending misunderstanding, troll. May view didn't evolve. Here is my statement: The best interest of both US and Soviet Union was calculated by taking into account the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue. The word "pre-condition" here expresses a rational requirement for geopolitical agents. And it applies differently in the case the US negotiating with Soviet Union and in the case of Ukraine negotiating with Russia.

You start by contradicting my position, that guarantees aren't ornamental ... and then just repeat my position back to me. — boethius

"Security guarantees" are not "ornamental" or "zero meaning" from a geopolitical point of view. But you think I'm repeating your position because you misunderstand mine. There is nothing in your reasoning that compels me to find the word "ornament" as appropriate replacement for "security guarantees". Even contracts enforced by central state are not guarantee in the sense of certainty. Legal justice more often than we hope can fail us for all kinds of reasons. Are they ornamental for that reason or State is not the guarantor of legal justice? No.
What is fallacious in your reasoning is that we are compelled to consider with "zero meaning" the "security guarantee" just because the word "guarantee" suggests to you certainty. This reasoning is utterly dumb and has no ground in geopolitical rationality. Indeed you are incapable of providing any parties (Russian or Ukrainian or Western) that understand the word "guarantee" the way you suggest.
So you built a fictitious "straw man" to argue against. That's how intellectually desperate you are.

You've basically transitioned into this euphemistic use of the word guarantee: not certain, not legal, no legal recourse — boethius

I didn't transition at all. Depending on the way the security guarantees (or NATO membership) is legally codified there might be occasions also for legal recourse, obviously.

I explain at some length that there can be other reasons outside of what wording is used in an agreement to believe that people, even an entire nation, will keep their word: nearly all of it is called circumstances and leverage. — boethius

I did it repeatedly before you did.

Key words: "If you're saying".

It's called "if" followed by a "then".

It was honestly unclear to me what your position has evolved into with all the goal post moving around. — boethius

Still a liar, my position didn't evolve. It's your understanding of it that did. Still in the wrong direction! Besides, the fact that you use a if-then statement to make your reasoning sound more plausible is still dishonest in suggesting that I'm agreeing with the way you framed the antecedent of the statement which also keeps echoing the claim "An obvious reality you seem finally to agree with". By putting your words in my mouth, you keep suggesting a conceptual framing that you have no reason at all to use to formulate my claims (actual or hypothetical), because I expressly and repeatedly objected against it.

All you're discovering is that "guarantees" is euphemism for "trust us bro" (as I've been explaining) and, sure, it can be reasonable for Zelensky to get whatever promises and statements of trust he can in a deal, but "guarantees" are purely ornamental.

This is a caricature of what it's understood by "security guarantee". The military cooperation between the US/NATO and Ukraine is the reason why Russia is still fighting, even without agreement on paper, go figure!
— boethius

If the US goes back on its word in the future (such as make certain "assurances" it doesn't give a shit about now), Ukraine will have no recourse. If Ukrainians complain "but I thought it was guaranteed" ... what's the answer going to be from the neocon appreciation brigade on reddit defending the US's position? "All is fair in love and war," or maybe "life's not fair, take care of your own security" etc. — boethius

But your conjectures do not prove anything from a geopolitical point of view. What gives meaning to such agreements is the actual geopolitical and historical circumstances, and their trends.

What do we learn, that simply calling something a guarantee doesn't make it a guarantee. — boethius

This claim is as obvious as "nothing certain in life". Nothing substantively relevant for geopolitical analysis and explanation.

Guarantee in the context of agreements refers to some actual consequence for not delivering. — boethius

Wrong, there can be consequences. These are implied material and reputational costs at least. At worst hegemonic influence.

More appropriate term that describes reality would be that what diplomats call "security guarantees" are actually in the real world of substance "security reasons". They maybe reasons to accept the deal, they may even actually happen, but they are not guarantees in some substantive contractual sense of guarantee. — boethius

There is a contractual sense of "security guarantees" as long as there is a legal codification. The point is that contract between states is not the same as contract between persons since there is no authority that can enforce contract the way a central state can do with individuals. That's all. In any case, that doesn't imply AT ALL that the meaning of such agreements are ornamental or meaningless.

You have simply strawmanned my position with conflating the ornamental nature of guarantee with the idea no one ever does what they promise. — boethius

I didn't claim that either. Indeed you can not quote me, you have to invent a putative conflation between ideas that I never stated nor implied. You are a pathological liar.

validly deduce/infer/conclude "there is a cow in the field" from mistaking cloth — creativesoul

I answered that already but maybe you didn't get it. There is no deduction or inference or conclusion since these concepts for me apply more appropriately between propositions, not between perceptions and propositions! One can more appropriately be said to form a perceptual belief out of his perceptual experiences. How did the farmer form his perceptual belief "that is a cow" by watching a piece of cloth resembling a cow? My answer is that this can be explained as resulting from 2 factors: his perceptual activity (recognizing a cow-shaped appearance) and a cultural cognitive bias (due to the habits of watching cows in that field), these cognitive abilities constitute a VALID justification for his perceptual belief (because they are relatively reliable), but not a SOUND justification for his perceptual belief though (because in that specific case they failed).

First, in our exchange, you wasted all occasions to quote where Zelensky used the word "precondition" which would be relevant to your argument. — neomac


Why would this be relevant to my argument? The word precondition was already being discussed, the point of discussion was if Zelensky's precondition to negotiate were reasonable or not. — boethius

If you want to discuss about "preconditions" attributed to Zelensky ("discussing Zelensky and his preconditions for dozens of pages”) or “Zelensky's precondition to negotiate” based on actual and pertinent evidence, you must (rational requirement) provide such evidences, starting with Zelensky's declared "precondition" statements, if there are any. Isn't that obviously obvious to you? Or should I say “tautological”?

If you want a citation of Zelensky literally using the word precondition, here you go:

"We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River," he said in a statement. — Reuters

Zelensky demands Russian troops leave Ukraine as precondition to diplomacy — The Times of Isreal
— boethius

So no evidence of Zelensky's declared preconditions in relation to "security guarantees" or "NATO membership", just evidence about preconditions for diplomatic meeting with Russia. That’s why it’s irrelevant to quote him, and you need to conjecture things in the most caricatural way to make a point. Unfortunately it didn’t go well for you.

What is relevant here is that the word precondition was already being discussed, that was the whole focus of my point you were clearly trying to rebut. — boethius

So you are using the word “precondition" the way it suits your argument not necessarily in relation with Zelensky's actual "precondition" declarations and in spite of talking in terms of "Zelensky's preconditions". Then I too used the word "precondition" the way it suits my argument not necessarily in relation with the actual "precondition" statements in your previous discussion on “Zelensky's precondition to negotiate”. Period.
Your historical example of NPT between US and Soviet Union didn’t clarify to me what we could infer from it wrt the Ukrainian case. Hence my objection.
For example, you didn’t consider their hegemonic role to induce compliance also in non-nuclear countries within their sphere of influence, nor the obvious motivation for non nuclear-powers to join such treaties in exchange for a nuclear-power states commitment to curb their military nuclear capacity. As far as the Ukrainian case is concerned, any long-term agreement between Russia and Ukraine must take into account that, given the historical circumstances, Ukrainian security concerns require some form of Western military support (e.g. NATO membership, security guarantees or equivalent) because Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear bombs to protect itself against Russia.
Now let’s loop for the thousand time over your intellectual failures…

You start off with bait-and-switch the meaning of precondition — boethius

Not at all, for the reasons I just explained. Maybe you were misled by the way I formulated my objection due to its syntax and the discussion you previously had with other interlocutors. That was unfortunate, but a misunderstanding nonetheless.

All you're saying is "agents" reason about things. — boethius

That’s again a misunderstanding of my claim. Not what I actually claimed, indeed you can not quote me. You desperately need to rephrase in a caricatural way my point to reach the conclusion that suits you. And that’s intellectually miserable. I’m responsible for what I write, not for what you understand.

But that's simply obviously — boethius

Then you must (logical requirement) converge to my conclusions!

not the point you were making. In using the word "pre-condition" and emphasising that Ukraine is in a different nuclear status, — boethius

That’s again your silly misunderstanding, and your arguments to support it are just a preposterous way to brainwash yourself into believing you are right. But I have no pity for your intellectual misery, as I said.

My point is that any promise to Ukraine by the West is meaningless in itself. The promise would be fulfilled if, later, it suits these powers to fulfil the promise. If, later, it doesn't suit these powers to fulfil the promise then it won't be fulfilled. There's alignment for now (for some arms, but "tut, tut, tut get your dirty hands of the shiny shit"), I'm just pointing out that if that alignment ever went away (such as happened with the Kurds) then no piece of paper is going to matter.

An obvious reality you seem finally to agree with. — boethius

But I don't agree with you, you are a liar if you claim otherwise. In particular, I don't agree with those claims in bold. There are material and reputational costs to take into account while implementing such promises, and implied security concerns that such promises can trigger. It's the promise of having Ukraine joining NATO that has been claimed to be an existential threat for Russia and to provoke its reaction.
From the fact that a paper doesn't compel the West to act in a given way, you infer that it's meaningless. But it's an unjustified claim: even words have no meaning outside their actual usage, but it would be a sophism to infer that, for that reason, words are meaningless! The same goes with "NATO membership" or "security guarantees", it’s the geopolitical and historical conditions that surround such agreements that give meaning and motivate the perpetuation of related informal and formal practices (treaties, alliances, pacts, etc.). And all rational geopolitical actors are aware of this. That's how they deal with geopolitical threats or opportunities.
That's why your argument in support of your claim that such practices are "ornamental" is a straw man argument.

WHO ON EARTH IS TAKING SECURITY GUARANTEES IN THE CERTAINTY SENSE? CAN YOU QUOTE HIM? — neomac


“There is only one goal (from Russia): to destroy our independence. There’s no other goal in place. That’s why we need security guarantees. … And we believe we have already demonstrated our forces’ capability to the world.” — Zelensky, quoted by CNN — boethius

And where on earth did you get the idea that "need security guarantees" means or suggests that the West/NATO/US support is certain or certain because it's signed on a paper ?! Are you crazy, dude?

Now, if you're saying Zelensky knows that security guarantees are only ornamental fluff to promises that will only be kept if it suits the promising party to keep the promise (aka. a nominal but meaningless promise), then I'd be happy to hear that Zelensky isn't delusional on this point of international relations. — boethius

I NEVER MADE SUCH A CLAIM, YOU LIAR, quote where I did! I just claimed that "security guarantees" (or equivalent) are neither "ornamental" nor "meaningless" and that it’s rational for Zelensky to pursue them based on the current geopolitical and historical circumstances.
That is supported by the quotations I previously reported.

Russia doesn't only cite nuclear weapons as a threat from NATO, but forward deployed missile bases.

Tangible weapons systems in the real world owned and operated by NATO that require NATO membership to be deployed in your country.

Now, there was a de facto understanding after the ascension of the Baltic's into NATO that certain systems wouldn't be forward deployed in order to reduce tensions and the possibility of accidents.

NATO then forward deployed exactly those missile systems saying "something, something, Iran" even though that made no sense. Whether this was breaking a promise or not, clearly NATO's policy is to forward deploy threatening weapons systems.

The deployment of actual weapons systems is what matters.

If the Baltics were nominally in NATO but hosted no NATO infrastructure, then, yes, this isn't really a threat as no NATO attacks could be launched given this lack of NATO infrastructure to do so. It's a reasonable compromise to maintain a reasonable defensive posture: we won't forward deploy to the Baltics as we have no intention to attack you, but we will come to their aid if they are attacked.

Of course, once you do forward deploy military systems you are by definition threatening the people in range of those systems and the logic of a defensive posture goes away.

The apologetics logic about this is that Russia shouldn't view these forward deployed systems as a threat, even if there's no other reason for it, because in NATO's heart of hearts they're not "out to get Russia", that's paranoid delusion talk.

But, if the first reaction of the West to this war in Ukraine is that it's an opportunity to weaken Russia, a geopolitical rival ... then obviously NATO was indeed threatening Russia all along.

Now, being threatened by real weapons systems in the real world does not then justify any action, but it does make this story of "unprovoked attack" absurd propaganda. If you threaten me and I punch you in the face, I could definitely still be in the wrong and be convicted of assault, but it wasn't unprovoked.

But to focus on the central issue we've been discussing: — boethius

In other words, the blablabla was so far out of focus, and therefore ornamental.

HOW DO YOU INTERPRET THIS BEHAVIOR IF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ARE JUST AN ORNAMENTAL AND NOTHING CERTAIN? — neomac


I have said adding the word "guarantee" to a promise is ornamental. The texts of international agreements still matter for what they actually do: coordinate actions of willing participants. — boethius

ROFL. So finally you are agreeing with me [1], then you must (logical requirement) no longer claim it's “ornamental” or “zero meaning” (on pain of inconsistency).
Besides, your smartass claim was due to an issue with the word “guarantee”, really?! Poor you! And what would be the legal expression you would use instead?! "Security ornaments"?! "Ornamental guarantees"?! “Ornamental ornaments”?! The legal expression "security guarantees" is perfectly intelligible because concerns the task of hedging against geopolitical risks coming from Russia and it implies greater costs than e.g. "security assurances". Besides no rational geopolitical actor can possibly misunderstand the meaning of "security guaranties" the way you suggest. Conclusion: yours is just an embarrassingly overblown straw man argument. Q.E.D.

THE MEMBERSHIP WASN'T IMMINENT — neomac

But to focus on another error in analysis. Everyone says that the footsie between NATO and Ukraine, even if we do see NATO policy is to forward deploy under stupid pretext (like "Iran" needs to be defended from the Baltics ... no closer NATO country or US / NATO base to Iran is convenient for that purpose), didn't matter because Ukraine wasn't going to join NATO anytime soon.

How would the Russians actually know what's imminent or not? — boethius

Blablabla, just to change subject while still implicitly proving that such agreements are not ornamental at all! Catastrophic!

Congrats for your epic fail, dude!


[1]

To the extent there is an international law and rational agents engage in it, there must be some reasonable application for it, independently from any arbitrarily high standard of reliability and compatibly with power balance/struggle concerns. The reason to me is obvious: the international legal framework increases transparency and trust, given the coordinated and codified procedures/roadmap to monitor and measure commitment and implied costs. — neomac

You are claiming that "these sorts of agreements are purely ornamental". I claim that this claim of yours show "completely ignorant understanding of international relations". International law has its use (addressing coordination issues) and can help in increasing transparency and trust. For that reason, rational political agents are engaging in it. — neomac

The thread is discussing Zelensky and his preconditions for dozens of pages. — boethius

First, in our exchange, you wasted all occasions to quote where Zelensky used the word "precondition" in support of your argument.
Second, what may be relevant to your argument, may be irrelevant to mine, as in this case, so your statement may contribute to explain why you misunderstood my claim, that's all.

retroactively dilute the meanings of words to most the goal posts of your claim to something so trivial and tautological it is not wrong — boethius

I'm not diluting anything, I formulated a very consequential reasoning from general principles (pragmatic rationality as applied to geopolitics) to conclusions (what was rational to expect from Zelensky and the West). Besides what you accuse me of ("tautology" which you neither defined nor quoted anything from what I said to prove it is, and can be charitably understood as "obvious truth"), can be retorted to you in the same dumb fashion. Finally, if my actual claim (not the one you attribute to me) was really obviously true to you, then either you must (rational requirement, logic conclusion [1]) converge with my conclusions, or keep as well your conclusion in contradiction with mine and end up with a logically inconsistent position.
See how catastrophic your position is, dude?

you're asking us to believe you were simply not following the discussion and just-so-happened to use the word in a different sense to make an empty point about how people generally make decisions — boethius

I'm not here to convince anybody. I had fun in clarifying my points against you. Instead of addressing them to my satisfaction, you decided to divert attention from them by blabbering about some trivial literal misunderstanding of yours which shouldn't have been a big deal for you to acknowledge and move on, given all my timely and repeated clarifications. If you now look so dumb to yourself, it's all your fault. I have no pity for you.

This is a proposal exactly in the understanding of international relations I've described: whatever the US does, now or in the future, is because it's in the US interest and no Ukraine. — boethius

Oh no no no, that's the sort of claim I made [2]. You keep claiming that this kind of proposal is "ornamental" and meaningless [3]
Besides given the historical circumstances US/NATO/West security interest and Ukrainian security interest may converge profitably for both. And this is another thing you missed from those quotations. Nowhere in those quotations there is a support for the claim that those agreements are ornamental or "zero meaningful security guarantees". Those quotations express the opposite of it, there is strong convergent interest.

There's no charity towards Ukraine now nor in the future. — boethius

WHO ON EARTH IS SAYING THAT SUCH PROPOSALS ARE OUT OF CHARITY? QUOTE HIM!
Until then, I'll consider your reiterated claims as a strawman argument based on a caricatural understanding of other people's claims (mine included).

Why would a nation that has accepted to live within its own borders attack anyone? — boethius

"Security guarantees" are meant to hedge against uncertainty, so by taking into account the pessimistic scenario for security, not the optimistic one. Isn't that obvious to you?

I'm sure you have some new boring diatribe explaining how this proposal is self contradictory — boethius

What?! You'd go so far, to claim that I would argue against the consistency of such proposals I myself quoted to successfully support my claims against yours?! Are you crazy?!

the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue. — neomac

"pre-condition for the kind of agreements" and "but Ukraine doesn’t have!" — boethius

Your argument is essentially based on an association of ideas between terms extrapolated from a sentence whose meaning you find hard to digest. I can concede that association of ideas is good enough for rhetoric not for understanding things logically which you failed to do. Taking into account logic is a precondition for the kind of discussions you can rationally engage in, dude!

having nuclear weapons was not a precondition for pursuing these kinds of agreements — boethius

"Precondition" wasn't referred to deterrence means nor nuclear weapons (this is your misunderstanding), but to considering the available deterrence means as a rational ground for pursuing any kind of security agreement by geopolitical agents. In other words, I was referring to a rational requirement. Indeed, pragmatic rationality is about effectively adapting means and goals, since the goal that geopolitical agents can often prioritize in given historical circumstances is security, then OBVIOUSLY deterrence means will be taken into account, and among deterrence means there might be nuclear weapons (like for the US and the Soviet Union) or alternatives (like in Ukraine). So countries which do not possess nuclear deterrence (like for Ukraine) will rationally look for AFFORDABLE means of deterrence alternative to nuclear weapons, like military cooperation with non-hostile and powerful countries (e.g. NATO membership, security guarantees from the West) that can stand against Russian expansionist and/or nuclear threat. To what extent is such form of military cooperation AFFORDABLE by Ukraine? To the extent the West/NATO/US has security concerns against Russia convergent with those ones of Ukraine, as it happened so far, also thanks to the boasting&aggressive defiant attitude of Russia against the West/NATO/US!
This argument is perfectly consequential and in contradiction to the claim that the military cooperation between Ukraine and the West is "zero meaningful" from a geopolitical point of view. This war is proving exactly the opposite of such spectacularly dumb claim of yours.


Finally, SINCE YOU KEEP DODGING MY QUESTIONS, HERE THEY ARE AGAIN:

• WHO ON EARTH IS TAKING SECURITY GUARANTEES IN THE CERTAINTY SENSE? CAN YOU QUOTE HIM?
• RUSSIA IS CLAIMED TO SEE AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT IN HAVING UKRAINE AND GEORGIA WITHIN NATO, THIS WAS NO ACTUAL NUCLEAR THREAT (BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE SUCH WEAPONS, AND THE MEMBERSHIP WASN'T IMMINENT) NOR - AS YOU COULD ARGUE - GUARANTEE IN THE SENSE OF CERTAINTY THAT RUSSIA WOULD BE NUKED AFTER UKRAINE JOINED NATO OR AFTER INVADING UKRAINE FOLLOWING THE UKRAINIAN NATO MEMBERSHIP. HOW DO YOU INTERPRET THIS BEHAVIOR IF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ARE JUST AN ORNAMENTAL AND NOTHING CERTAIN?

UNTIL YOU ANSWER THEM APPROPRIATELY, I’LL KEEP CONSIDERING YOUR CLAIMS FOR WHAT THEY LOOK, A MONUMENTAL STRAW MAN ARGUMENT BECAUSE GROUNDED ON THE CARICATURAL ASSUMPTION THAT SECURITY GUARANTEES IS WRONGLY ASSOCIATED WITH CERTAINTY INSTEAD OF BEING RIGHTLY ASSOCIATED WITH HEDGING AGAINST UNCERTAINTY.



[1]


[2]

So what? There are three reasons your question is failing to take into account:
1. We are in the middle of the war so we don’t see the end of the war nor the full consequences of such war. The Soviet–Afghan War lasted 10 years, could anyone see the end of it and the following collapse of the Soviet Union while they were in the middle of it back then? No, because they didn’t happen yet.
2. Russia was complaining about NATO enlargement since the 90s, did Russia see NATO enlargement stopping for that reason? NATO/US can be as determined as Russia to pursue their goals in Ukraine at the expense of Russia. And since Russia, especially under Putin, took a declared confrontational attitude toward the hegemonic power, Russia made sure that NATO/US will deal with Russia accordingly as long as they see fit.
3. The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. — neomac

[3]

Second, Ukraine will receive zero meaningful security guarantees in any peace deal with Russia, other than the ornamental meaning of "trust us bro". — boethius

I've made several accompanied by subsequent argument. You've chosen to neglect all that. — creativesoul

What argument are you talking about? Quote yourself.

The latest point was that you could not back up your claims about "there's a cow in the field" being justified. — creativesoul

First we have to agree on the notion of "justification", otherwise we are talking past each other.

You refuse to answer very basic questions regarding how? Instead, you feign ignorance and distract attention away from your own shortcomings by creating confusion regarding what is meant by the words that you must use in order to make your case. Like your herring a bit red, do you?

You've proven my last point rather nicely. — creativesoul

Given our past exchange, I can see why you are on the defensive. I didn't expect much from you either. Still I don't get what your point is. In this recent exchange between us, you didn't explain how you changed your views nor why. So either you quote your actual arguments or you can leave it at that. I suggest you the second, it's safer for you.

I'm still willing to see how "there is a cow in the field" satisfies your criterion for what counts as a justified belief. — creativesoul

Here is my proposal (for the third time):

• I think "justification" is a normative term, not a descriptive one. Additionally, justificatory practices vary depending on the genesis of a belief and they have different degrees of reliability (which also means that we distinguish "valid" from "sound" applications). Since our beliefs are fallible, our knowledge and justificatory claims are fallible as well
• since the distinction between justification+"no false lemma" and justification-"no false lemma" looks analogous to the distinction between sound and valid deduction, we could simply talk about sound vs valid justification depending on the context. So in the case of the farmer's false belief, we could say he is validly justified in believing that there is a cow, but not soundly justified. And only the latter case can be called knowledge.

Do you agree or not? If not why not?

Valid criticism of my own position works too, but if you do not understand it, then it would be unreasonable of me to expect you to provide such. I'm strongly asserting that it is not justified, and I've offered more than adequate/sufficient subsequent arguments and/or reasoning for that assertion. — creativesoul

Where? Quote yourself. I prefer to see the argument. Your self-promoting blablabla are not a replacement for it.

my primary purpose on this forum is to develop methods against bad faith debate. — boethius

That's why I have no pity for your intellectual misery.

Now, unless you're now claiming to have zero reading comprehensions skills, of your own words or anyone else's, at this point in the debate the word "precondition" had been the focus of discussion for several pages with a clear meaning; Zelensky uses the word and everyone in the discussion was using the word in exactly the same way, exactly how the dictionary describes it. — boethius

A sequel of nonsense one after the other:
- I'm claiming that you keep misunderstanding my claim (and I did it even in that quotation!).
- I also explained to you what triggered your wrong understanding of my claim.
- I said nowhere that I used the word precondition as Zelensky.
- You didn't even quote Zelensky's claims where he used the word precondition.
- The rest of your comment follows from your reiterated wrong assumptions, so more of the same intellectual misery, good for the trash bin.

The problem you've encountered is that your position is false: — boethius

Unfortunately for you what I claimed is very much consequential wrt what I argued since the beginning (and you misunderstood) and in line with standard understanding of international relations as applied to Ukraine:
Rasmussen characterized the proposed security pact as part of a long-term answer to the West’s long-standing challenge with Russia, rather than as an act of charity to Ukraine, as Washington tries to pivot more resources to geopolitical competition with China. “If we get this right, the security guarantees to Ukraine could fix the Russia problem, because it is in the interest of the U.S. to have a strong and stable Eastern European partner as a bulwark against Russian attacks.”
Volker said the best way to secure Ukraine over the long term was to focus on the country’s eventual accession into NATO, rather than working out an interim option. “It’s good to have this [Kyiv Security Compact] as an alternative that people can chew on,” said Volker, who also served as U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. “But when you start stacking it against actual NATO membership, and you start considering this as a possibility at a time when Russia will have been defeated and accepted to live within its own borders, NATO is better.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/10/ukraine-nato-accession-kyiv-security-compact-rasmussen/

Since you keep dodging my questions, here they are again:

• Who on earth is taking security guarantees in the certainty sense? Can you quote him?
• Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Ukrainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornamental and nothing certain?

Until you answer them appropriately, I’ll keep considering your claims for what they look, a monumental straw man argument because grounded on the caricatural assumption that security guarantees is wrongly associated with certainty instead of being rightly associated with hedging against uncertainty.


P.S.
I re-claim all I wrote, word by word:
This is just foolish. At no point did either side threaten the other with a first strike nuclear launch if they broke or pulled out of any agreement.
The basis of diplomatic resolutions between the Soviet Union and the US was that each side saw it was in their best interest to avoid a large scale nuclear war, and each side was able to believe the other side believed that too, so some agreements could be reached.
— boethius

You misunderstood my claim. I was referring precisely to the following condition: “each side saw it was in their best interest to avoid a large scale nuclear war”. The best interest of both US and Soviet Union was calculated by taking into account the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue. — neomac

That's simply not your original claim — boethius

Quote whatever you think was my original claim so I can claim it again and then you explain its meaning to me, dude.

Notice the strong words like "must" ... and absence of words like "optional" or "nice to have, but not like, an actual precondition". — boethius

Sure like a rational requirement, like the rules of logic, that's why the word precondition was appropriate for me to use. In other words, the problem is not the word "precondition" but probably the syntactic ambiguity of "this" which you took as referring to "deterrence means" instead of "taking into account the deterrence means they both had ". This might have triggered your misunderstanding. Anyways it remains a misunderstanding.

Notice the tautological nature of your new claim, which is, seeing as you agree having nuclear weapons isn't a precondition to any agreement about nuclear weapons in anyway, that people just basically take into account information in making decisions. True for pretty much any decisions. — boethius

But I didn’t make anywhere the claim that “people just basically take into account information in making decisions”, indeed you are incapable of quoting any such claim. It's like me attributing to you the claim: "basically nothing is certain in life", which is another obvious truth.
My point was and is that available deterrence means must be taken into account by rational agents in the geopolitical arena for both war time and peace time, since security concerns are of paramount importance in geopolitics. From that follows that it’s rational for Ukraine to look for affordable deterrence means alternative to the nuclear weapons (as long as it doesn’t have it) to hedge against the risks of Russian expansionism: e.g. NATO membership and “security guarantees”. The likelihood of this happening depends on the West of course as much as the support Ukraine gets right now against the Russian aggression and prior to such an aggression, independently from the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member yet. But as long as the West perceives Russia as a non-negligible threat and has the means to counter it, Ukraine can rationally exploit such condition (as it has managed to do so far) to have the West stick around at the expense of Russian expansionism during war time and peace time e.g. through NATO membership or “security guarantees”.
What’s catastrophic in your dialectic strategy is that after realising you have badly misunderstood my claims, you are trying to make them ultimately appear at the same time as obviously true (by calling them “tautological”) and most likely false (by calling them “ornamental”).
Unfortunately for you what I claimed is very much consequential and in line with standard understanding of international relations as applied to Ukraine:
Rasmussen characterized the proposed security pact as part of a long-term answer to the West’s long-standing challenge with Russia, rather than as an act of charity to Ukraine, as Washington tries to pivot more resources to geopolitical competition with China. “If we get this right, the security guarantees to Ukraine could fix the Russia problem, because it is in the interest of the U.S. to have a strong and stable Eastern European partner as a bulwark against Russian attacks.”
Volker said the best way to secure Ukraine over the long term was to focus on the country’s eventual accession into NATO, rather than working out an interim option. “It’s good to have this [Kyiv Security Compact] as an alternative that people can chew on,” said Volker, who also served as U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. “But when you start stacking it against actual NATO membership, and you start considering this as a possibility at a time when Russia will have been defeated and accepted to live within its own borders, NATO is better.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/10/ukraine-nato-accession-kyiv-security-compact-rasmussen/

Since you keep dodging my questions, here they are again:

• Who on earth is taking security guarantees in the certainty sense? Can you quote him?
• Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Ukrainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornamental and nothing certain?

Until you answer them appropriately, I’ll keep considering your claims for what they look, a monumental straw man argument because grounded on the caricatural assumption that security guarantees is wrongly associated with certainty instead of being rightly associated with hedging against uncertainty.

Your exact word was "pre-condition".

Pre-condition for what? A deal concerning nuclear weapons. What's the precondition again? Having nuclear weapons, in your rebuttal to my point that the United States and Soviet Union were able to come to agreements despite not trusting each other (that "trust", such as "trusting Putin", is not a precondition to international agreements and treatise and so on). — boethius

Here I claim it again: The best interest of both US and Soviet Union was calculated by taking into account the deterrence means they both had (but Ukraine doesn’t have!), and this was pre-condition for the kind of agreements they could rationally pursue
The problem is not the word "precondition" but the syntactic ambiguity of "this" which you took as referring to "deterrence means" instead of "taking into account the deterrence means they both had ". This looks to me now the likely trigger of your misunderstanding. Anyways you are wrong.

It's rational to want to shit gold (in a rectally safe way and not a "careful what you wish for way"). It's rational for Zelensky to want to be king of the world. — boethius

I see you understand the word "rationality" as arbitrarily as you understand the word "precondition". Still waiting for you to quote who believed in security guaranties in the sense of certainty. Try harder.

And, if we were only talking about "action must be taken", that's ambiguous enough, but the context is incredibly clear, specifically the word "attack" is incredibly clear without alternative meaning. — boethius

Like "pre-condition" I guess. BTW "clear" in the sense that is obvious to you or in the sense that we should really care about?

If by look for you mean some actual objective ... and you are now placing "security guarantees" in quotations to emphasise the ornamental meaning of the phrase in the context we're discussing, then yes, we do agree. But all you're saying is that Ukraine (if it wanted to get a peace deal) should seek as good a deal as it can get, which is obviously true. — boethius

You are getting closer to the same conclusion. But since you keep insisting on talking in terms "ornamental" then I'll ask you again: Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Urkainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornament and nothing certain?

He simply argued that Benkei's understanding of Zelensky's claims wasn't obvious — neomac


But it is obvious. — boethius

I wasn't arguing to support Christoff's understanding of Zelensky (I find Zelensky's attitude toward the missile incident questionable). I was arguing against the claim that Christoff committed a fallacious attack ad hominem.

It cannot be clearer that you are claiming the US and Soviet Union can make deals without trusting each other because of the nuclear weapons. — boethius

And what holds for US and Soviet Union doesn't necessarily hold for other countries not possessing such weapons, like Ukraine.

Saying "nuclear weapons" is a precondition to a deal about nuclear weapons, is a tautology. — boethius

I never said such a thing. "Precondition" was referred not to nuclear weapons but to taking into account means of deterrence available to geopolitical subjects concerned about security. The US and Soviet Union possess nuclear weapons so they will take that into account. Nuclear weapons are something "that Ukraine doesn't have!" therefore it's rational for them to find an alternative (e.g. whatever kind of economic-military alliance with the West that could help them hedge the risks coming from Russia). That and only that is what you must have inferred from my claim as I repeatedly clarified.
Now for the tenth (?) and last time. I'm not interested in feeding your personal guinness record of intellectual failures.

If there is a peace deal, the situation will be the same. — boethius

Same with respect to what? If sunk costs are of significant magnitude for Russia or more consistent for Russia than for its rivals then the situation is not at all the same in some relevant sense.
Besides Russia couldn't know at the beginning of this war what would have costed to them this war. Worse than this, it seems to have badly miscalculated a lot of things (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-miscalculations). And once one is trapped inside a sunk cost fallacy, it's really hard to stop it.

reading comprehension. — boethius

The irony.

So either you're saying nothing at all, just that people have the idea of nuclear weapons in their head in making deals about nuclear weapons, or then you're saying something meaningful that would have been meaningfully connected to the point you are responding to: that actually having the nuclear weapons is "pre-condition" to making a deal about said nuclear weapons, as a substitute to the trust that gave rise to this discussion. A meaningful argument, just obviously wrong. — boethius

"Again, reading comprehension".

If we agree on this point, then we agree that this is in no war a guarantee. — boethius

I totally agree with you if and only if you totally agree with me that is perfectly and pragmatically rational for Ukraine to look for "security guarantees" or equivalent to hedge against the risk of Russian adventurism at Ukrainian expenses.

If we also agree the US is not going to nuke Russia if they invade again (or at least not due to anything written on any piece of paper with the word "Ukraine" on it), then there is just no guarantees available. You can call something a guarantee; you can write down "the US will see to it that this deal is respected, that's a Uncle Sam guarantee!" but it's not a guarantee in any sense more than ornamentation added to the agreement for PR purposes. Wording and PR does have some consequence, it's not meaningless, just the US is not about nuke anyone simply due to PR optics of not-nuking them. They'll nuke Russia if they genuinely believe Russia is going to nuke them now or after some series of events they come to believe are inevitable. The decision to nuke Russia or not will have anything to do with any promises to Ukraine; I guarantee you that in the certainty sense of guarantee. — boethius

You are pointlessly obsessing over nuclear bombs. Russia is claimed to see an existential threat in having Ukraine and Georgia within NATO, this was no actual nuclear threat (because they didn't have such weapons, and the membership wasn't imminent) nor - as you could argue - guarantee in the sense of certainty that Russia would be nuked after Ukraine joined NATO or after invading Ukraine following the Urkainian NATO membership. How do you interpret this behavior if international relations are just an ornament and nothing certain?
BTW, for the third time, who on earth is taking security guarantees in the certainty sense? Can you quote him?

Has nothing to do with my point. My point is simply that obviously Russia is willing to pay the cost of war with Ukraine under certain circumstances (such as circumstances that literally exist right now ... if they weren't willing, then they'd be withdrawing right now and the war would be over). Therefore, you could never reasonably assume such circumstances would not reemerge in the future regardless of any peace deal today. If there's no third party to keep Russia to its promise to not reinvade in the context of a peace deal (even ignoring the problem of why we'd believe such a third party would actually act), then there is simply nothing that can be remotely described as a guarantee of not being reinvaded available to Ukraine. — boethius

Your point looks ornamental, once you take into account my points. Again, who on earth is reasonably assuming such circumstances would not reemerge in the future regardless of any peace deal today? Do you have actual quotes to provide or it's all a strawman argument you are looping over?

However, if this damage is indeed significant, then it would be reason to assume that Russia would not restart a war that was so damaging. — boethius

After some more blablabla you finally converge to my conclusion. So I can spare myself commenting the rest of your blablabla.