Social constructs suggest a consensus and a collaboration, and I doubt such a thing has occurred. — NOS4A2

Well, I think for many today, to be a citizen of their country doesn't mean so much if anything. You can see it from the comments even here. But there is enough consensus about citizenship around: just try to go to another country that you need a visa without one (or passport). Outside of your country, you will be looked as an US Citizen, irrelevant how much you relate to being one.

One can understand the self-identification with a race, though, especially in America, where these distinctions have been pounded into our heads our whole lives, even after the unspooling of the human genome has discredited them. For many it was a matter of life and death. But nowadays it's just de rigueur. — NOS4A2

Even if it's a bit different in Latin America, it's the same problem in the continent. Class division has become a race division, which makes the issue so toxic. The correlation with poverty and races shows this. In Latin America it's quite obvious with the divide between the Native American (Indian) population and those that have European ancestry. And the Spanish caste system has made it as bad in Latin America.

Desperately trying to see something wrong when their isn't.

Actions are important. Like who actually attacked whom. And then what here the attacker says is also important. Even if understandably he portrays the culprit for the war to be the one attacked. Just like Stalin's Soviet Union declared that Finland had attacked the Soviet Union. Or Poland German with Hitler.

You should be given some kind of a strawman-prize.

I am against what they say. I would call them “social impositions” because they were born of pseudoscience and imposed upon entire peoples. Besides, the pseudo-scientific justifications for applying these labels have long been discredited. — NOS4A2

Social constructs are a good way to think about these issues. Let's first define it:"A social construct or construction is the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event."

Someone defining himself as "American", meaning being a citizen of the US, or "British", is a clear social construct. We can easily understand that if history wouldn't have gone the way it did, those definitions would be different. And obviously they carry a lot legally in our societies and citizenship and the nation which people belong to means a lot to many. The naively stupid view is that when these are "just" social constructs and "invented", they are either false, irrelevant and don't matter.

Just talking about classes can get some angry as they either understand the term as castes, or then think it's just leftist nonsense. The juxtaposition between "white-collar" and "blue-collar" workers isn't so politically motivated, but basically again it's a social construct.

For me it seems that race relations have become a similar issue to Americans like Hitler and nazism to the Germans. It's obvious that slavery, segregation, Jim Crow and lynchings aren't the brightest side of American history. As the old saying goes, if you are losing a debate to a German, you can always go for the "Hitler-card". And if you have a Hitler-card, well, it comes to be so easy. And some do use them..

You call Putin a liar in one sentence and take his word in the next. — Tzeentch

Wrong, What I say what he speaks is important how Kremlin portrays this war, what is the narrative fed to the Russian people. And it's telling how he sees the West.

So if a politician lies, which they can, then it's irrelevant what he says at all???

Only now it's suddenly becomes possible for Putin to lie. — Isaac

?

I thought the classic denial from Putin of the "little green men" happened quite a long time ago. Heck, he should have not even come out with that one: some perhaps wouldn't still believe that Crimea was taken over by "Crimean volunteers".

Putin lies. That means we don't know what he really thinks from his speeches. — Isaac

Irrelevant

Actions matters, not what people really think, but what they do. And his speeches show clearly the way how the Kremlin now sees the war. It's also important understand how he portrays the West to the Russian public. Besides, there's nothing new to the fact that in Russia there are several words for truth. During Soviet times when talking to Soviets a big part of any discourse was the "lithurgy".

What should get over?

So you think it's basically a land grab? — frank

Basically yes.

What else would it be? Putin is talking of Donbas and Novorossiya as parts of Russia, now liberated from the "artificial country". The change of curriculum in schools and all what they intend to do makes it quite clear.

Or then you can believe that this is also an existential struggle for Russia as the West wants to destroy Russia and it's culture with Western decadence. And that's the "defensive" motivation to push borders of Russia forward.

A quote from Putin's speech, because it's important to understand what Putin is really saying:

The Western elite make no secret of their goal, which is, I quote, “Russia’s strategic defeat.” What does this mean to us? This means they plan to finish us once and for all. In other words, they plan to grow a local conflict into a global confrontation. This is how we understand it and we will respond accordingly, because this represents an existential threat to our country.

However, they too realize it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield and are conducting increasingly aggressive information attacks against us targeting primarily the younger generation. They never stop lying and distorting historical facts as they attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religious organizations in our country.

Look what they are doing to their own people. It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life. They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages. Bless their hearts, let them do as they please. Here is what I would like to say in this regard. Adult people can do as they please. We in Russia have always seen it that way and always will: no one is going to intrude into other people’s private lives, and we are not going to do it, either.

What is it about in your view (a year into it)? — frank

NATO expansion is one reason, but it was more of a figleaf than an actual reason for him to attack Ukraine as only massing troops to the border already got him clear signals that Ukraine wouldn't be part of NATO (with Germany saying so). Still actually Hungary objects Ukrainian NATO membership. Hence if Ukraine staying out of NATO would have been the only objective, no reason to start an all out war. Yet annexing territories should make it totally clear to everyone what the actual objectives are.

But of course now Putin depicts that the West has (and has always had) the intent to destroy Russia. He sees this as a long standing objective for the West. In his last speech Putin's biased history interpretation shows this well:

I would like to recall that, in the 1930s, the West had virtually paved the way to power for the Nazis in Germany. In our time, they started turning Ukraine into an “anti-Russia.” Actually, this project is not new. People who are knowledgeable about history at least to some extent realise that this project dates back to the 19th century. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland had conceived it for one purpose, that is, to deprive Russia of these historical territories that are now called Ukraine. This is their goal. There is nothing new here; they are repeating everything.

And btw, just to show how in line with Putin some views on this thread are, here is the man himself explaining the culprit of this war:

Responsibility for inciting and escalating the Ukraine conflict as well as the sheer number of casualties lies entirely with the Western elites and, of course, today’s Kiev regime, for which the Ukrainian people are, in fact, not its own people. The current Ukrainian regime is serving not national interests, but the interests of third countries.

It's progressive, though I would sooner call it regressive since it has effectively worked to dial back the clock on the role of race in society some 50 years. - What can be considered "progressive" these days is basically a counter-movement to actual liberalism, and is basically its polar opposite. It's attempts at controlling speech and people's thoughts are eerily Orwellian, and authoritarian to the very core. — Tzeentch

I would add that the present tribalism and polarization works by those who oppose an ideology (left or right etc.) picking the worst, most fatuous examples there exists. Which usually is some odd extremist, who usually hasn't got anything in common with moderate views.

Also, I guess for politics it's the normal that centrist, moderate and consensus seeking views are attacked by those that we say to be on the far (left or right). The algorithms in the net / social media just exacerbate this. After all, a fight is more enjoyment to watch than people generally agreeing and having differences about the nuances.

For me the fact that people use racial categories to divide human beings doesn’t entail that races themselves are true in any way, social or otherwise. — NOS4A2

In any way? What about as social constructs?

Start with the US Census Bureau. Are you against what they say?

The U.S. Census Bureau collects racial data in accordance with the 1997 Office of Management and Budget standards on race and ethnicity. The data on race are based on self-identification and the categories on the form generally reflect a social definition of race. The categories are not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. Respondents can mark more than one race on the form to indicate their racial mixture.

At least it's just the media and not Putin himself. That would inch us closer to world war. — frank

In fact, Putin gave a "meh" to the membership application of Sweden and Finland. The only reaction was that Russia doesn't want permanent NATO bases, which in fact is quite unlikely.

Which actually goes against the cherished view (by some active participants here) that the war in Ukraine was only about NATO expansion.

The difference is that one involves weapons and the other involves people. — Isaac

The actual difference is just who are the belligerents. Try as much (as Putin does) to make supplying weapon to a belligerent an act of war, but it isn't. But as noted, some try to make it look that way.

Try to get that into "your little head".

Will it be they or us? — javi2541997

Or the question is, in line with @niki wonoto's gloomy OP, will we live to see that day? I'd have high hopes if I would live for 105 000 years. (Or would it be 210 000?)

The 'fact' about how significant multilateral agreements with weaker partners are relative to bilateral agreements with stronger ones, for example. Where's that 'fact' such that we can resolve this disagreement we have? — Isaac

I'm not sure what you are saying here.

A multilateral approach to security has it's benefits. Starting from NATO's article 1. Then comes the actual coordination between the armed forces between different countries. Something that didn't succeed so well in the former treaty organizations (CENTO and SEATO).

If you have the world's largest military, supported by the world's most influential government, on your side, that's all that matters. — Isaac

Yet you should understand the difference of between a) sending weapons to a country and b) defending it with your own troops.

This was evident before this escalation of the war with Ukraine. Yes, the US sent aid, and trained Ukrainian defence forces. In Finland or Sweden they don't train Finnish or Swedish troops, the train to fight here. When you have B-52s training to mine Swedish waters (to defend against possible landings), it's a bit different than sending (or selling) sea mines to Sweden.

when Tzeentch made that exact same argument about Ukraine's de facto reliance on the military support of the US you started bleating on about how important the support of all the other nations was. — Isaac

Because you assume that Europe is just made up of Lichtensteins. What I noted that actually countries like Poland and others have done their share also. In aggregate it starts to mean something.

This leads to the conclusion that, not only are there probably other intelligences, there are probably other intelligences far more advanced than our own. — Pantagruel

Yes, when you have about 100-200 billion galaxies in the universe and now something about probabilities.

And if we want to remind how fleeing our time is along the OP of this thread, we can observe our sent radio waves travelling the speed of light haven't made far in our galaxy:

(Ought to resemble a 105 000 light year diameter galaxy with a 200 diameter range)


And in addition, anybody with the capable technology to interact with us, the range for that interaction is half of that.

Biologically, the categories are false; socially, they're true. Being a social animal is a double-edged sword; we look for reasons to unite in groups and divide against other groups and find the stupidest ways of doing that. — Baden

Yet if it's biologically false, it's false. If it's socially true, it's a social construct. As you said above.

And that makes it different.

Thus you might then argue that some women being witches is true because a lot of people believed that some females would use black magic and witchcraft and thus should be burnt as a danger to the society. Wasn't witchcraft then a social construct? You can easily see that this was a way to put into line women, especially those that didn't live under the eyes of their husband.

That's were this is going. In a post-truth environment where people are ignorant about the facts, you can make whatever reality, as long as you stay credible to some with an agenda that benefits from the lie. Current tribalism and polarization just enforces this.

There are two things you seem to mix here.

One is bilateral defense agreements, then another is the effectiveness of NATO.

For imminent security concerns a bilateral defense agreements with the US (and others) secure Finland. But that doesn't improve much the security of others.

NATO membership would provide more as NATO membership would bring us far more benefits... and Europe. The Baltic states would be very happy if both Finland and Sweden would be in the alliance. If you have just bilateral agreements, then there is no coordination among the countries that have these agreements with the US. With NATO you have coordination with a multitude of countries, and possibilities for example for operations like NATO countries having a permanent air capability in the Baltics and these little states don't have to buy expensive fighter aircraft, but can concentrate on their ground forces. And I would remind that actually NATO's article number 1 is also very important... as this is Europe.

The US is already facing this problem in South East Asia with the absence of SEATO: yes, the US has agreements with Japan, the Phillipines, Australia (with AUKUS), but these countries have no coordination among each other.

So for all practical purposes, Finland is in NATO now. Does that feel like a big shift in Finland's long term strategies to you? — frank

Yes.

February 24th 2022 was a huge change for Finland (and Sweden). Only a minority of Finns had wanted to join NATO beforehand, but now instantly it became a huge majority.

Basically Finlandization finally came to an end, the idea that we can manage both to have good relations with the West and with Russia. This change naturally started to change when the Soviet Union collapsed and Finland joined the European Union. Then neutrality changed (as Russia is basically hostile towards the EU). It wasn't the Russo-Georgian war, the annexation of Crimea, but this all-out attack on Ukraine that finally broke the camels back. Joining NATO was quite unanimous, now 184 against 7 votes in the Parliament passing the law to join NATO, which is far bigger majority than when Finland joined the EU.

Now the relations with Russia are as cold as they were... I guess in the 1930's. Finnish Prime minister Sanna Marin (a social democrat) and the Estonian president have been referred in Russian media to be "female nazi concentration camp guards". So that's where the relations are with Russia. All time low.

Personally I started to see the change a few years ago when as a reservist the local the sotilaskoti (cafeteria for soldiers) at the military base was filled with British troops eating pizza. Seeing foreign troops in a Finnish military base hadn't happened for a long time. Now the reservists and the conscripts have trained in mixed teams with the US marines. It's a big shift.

The truth is that both Finland and Sweden would have been happy to stay outside NATO and have membership just as an "option", hence trying to have good relations with Russia. But those mean little to Putin, so enough was enough.

Yeah, funny that. It's almost as if it doesn't really matter what the other countries think. — Isaac

Oh but it does.

Which just shows that NATO is an international organization where the opinions of the member states do matter, hence the idea that NATO is just a pawn for the US and it can rule through whatever it wants is a false idea (which has been promoted even on this thread by some).

Same thing with EU, getting all the sovereign countries to get behind something isn't an easy thing to do.

Are Finland and Sweden going to make it into NATO or not? — frank

Hungary and Turkey will milk what they can get from it, but I'm not worried.

Besides, for this time, when the countries have made the application for NATO, accepted by all but two member countries and hence yet aren't full members of NATO, the US, the UK and for example Poland have already given bilateral security guarantees. When you have already bilateral security guarantees from the US and UK (and other NATO member states), I wouldn't be worried about it.

In fact Hungary has come out saying that it won't accept Ukraine to the EU either.

If only that were true. :broken: — praxis

I agree, and that's why we ought treat humans better.

I pointed out that both apple and canine varieties (also “false taxonomies”) are also influenced by human social, cultural, and perhaps even political factors. In fact, they wouldn’t exist at all without the influence of humanity and its culture. — praxis

Taxonomies are good if you can answer some specific questions with using them. Otherwise they aren't so important.

And other animals have affected other species and the environment too. Besides, if it wasn't for one freaking asteroid, dinosaurs would likely roam here and humans wouldn't have inherited this planet (if perhaps not even evolved).

The philosophical problem is that as we are intelligent animals, we can harness our environment and other species to lengths that hasn't happened earlier on this planet, however when we are animals, we are part of the environment too. So, why the difference between us and the biosphere, when we don't make such with other animals?

Would you compare human races to dog breeds? — NOS4A2

Dog breeds are also cultivated by humans. — praxis

Comparing humans to animals is a very slippery slope as we don't treat humans as we do animals, even if many think (as I do) that humans are just intelligent animals.

If European leaders are incapable of serving European interests, Europeans better be outside NATO. Feeling better now? — neomac

:up:

Seems like (to some here) Europeans are just spineless lackeys and pawns, who should stand up against the system they themselves have been part of creating and now depend on. Bad Europeans, bad!

FYI, how things are done in Moscow, reported by different sources, Yevgeny Prigozhin complains about his mercs not getting enough ammo from the Russian army to kill Ukrainians: — jorndoe

I remember reading that actually in Russia there's no legal stature for PMC's like Wagner to exist in Russia, which fits quite well to the dictators gameplay: even the existence of these groups is totally dependent on Putin.

And the division of Russian forces to the Armed Forces and the National Guard, and then to private armies like the Wagner group, is purely done to strengthen Putin's power by not centralizing the military power into a central command. Similar tactics have been (and are) played around with dictatorships, most well known example perhaps Hitler's Third Reich having the Wehrmacht and the SS, even with Göring's Luftwaffe having their own ground troops, even panzer divisions.

The obvious result is shown here happening in Russia, with Wagner and the military obviously being in bad terms with each other. Of course the good thing is that this division purely done by Putin's efforts to control everything helps the Ukrainians. It helped last year with the Ukrainian counterattack which focused on a section of the front manned by National Guard units, which weren't as heavily armed as army units (as their mission is to beat demonstators and hunt lightly armed insurgents.

Similarly Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the Chechen republic and his Chechen, aren't in any way a political threat to Putin's power. But as both Wagner and Kadyrov's Chechen are needed, they can bitch about how things really are.

And as Putin as dictator basically think about himself, this kind of system of various actors and players can create a real shit show in Russia as Putin cannot live forever. (Even if the country has seen false-Dimitry's, likely we won't see false Putins. At least it's unlikely.)

It’s well-known that urban settlements and the division of labour led to increasing stratification. — Jamal

Stratification comes also by the free market system, where supply and demand determine price and thus the income of people. And we accept this because this usually goes along the lines of a meritocratic society: if you have quite rare abilities and knowledge for which there is a demand for, you get a higher income for your work. If on the other hand you can only do something that nearly everybody can do with little training, then likely the compensation for that work will be meager. If there is a shortage of labour, then the price of that labour has to go up, which then also affects just where people choose to work. And as we cannot know just what will be needed, we get the needed information from the price mechanism.

. So the transition to a more democratic regime might more easily support separatist movements wherever the relation between ethnic groups is diverging or has been historically tense if not dramatic. — neomac

This is the fear just what both China and Russia have about democracy in a nutshell.

A country with various ethnicities and people is difficult to sustain. But it is possible. One successful way is to create an entity in which all belong. With England it was the creation of the term "British". The Scots and the Welsh are also "British". The Russian Empire didn't have that, but then with the Bolshevik Revolution you did get a common entity of everybody being "Soviet". Yet that Soviet Union, didn't last.

I agree. I’d go further and point out that Stalin was a committed Marxist and not just an opportunist monster as Trotskyists like to imagine. — Jamal

Above all Stalin was also an organizer, who kept the Soviet experiment going. But I don't think his way into power was some kind of accident, it's something that likely would happen sooner or later. When you are committed to revolution and using violence, it's no surprise that a very violent person (or some who use a lot of violence) will end up in charge.

That's why you do need the safety valves of a democracy, a constitution, elements of a justice state and so on.

But that’s all boring, and it doesn’t invalidate Marx’s critique. — Jamal

It's easy to make a critique of how things are. The important issue what you give as an answer.

The point (which you conveniently ignored) was at what cost is the Netherlands now quite a nice place to live?

At what cost to Africa (from which a large part of it's wealth was stolen)? — Isaac

Lol. I think you are mixing up colonies of Belgium and the Dutch (as the Dutch Cape colony existed until 1806) and the largest colony was the East Indies (modern Indonesia).

First, ssu mentioned Marxism, the tradition that grew out of Marx and developed the theories. One such development, as ssu has mentioned, was Marxism-Leninism, which can fairly be said to promote one party rule.

Second, Marx himself spoke in favour of “revolutionary terror” and of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

On the other hand, the dictatorship of the proletariat doesn’t necessarily entail one-party rule: anti-Stalinist Marxists point to the unfulfilled promise of workplace and soviet (council) democracy as a way to actualize it. — Jamal

As I tried to give @Benkei the example of Nietzsche and Nazi ideology. Was Nietzsche hijacked? Misunderstood or misinterpreted? That's one discussion, but it cannot refute the fact that Nazi ideology cherished Nietzsche's thoughts. However much "misinterpretation" there was.

Hence I understand fully well, that the writings of Karl Marx and Marxism-Leninism as it existed in the 20th Century are two different things. Yet to say Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union and all the attempts on creating a Marxist revolution have nothing to do with the Karl Marx, is a bit too far.

This is bullshit. If you are so badly educated in Marx' work that you think this has sensibly been attempted anywhere how he envisaged it then you really don't know what he wrote. — Benkei

I'm sure Nietschze wouldn't have been enthusiastic of the Third Reich making him their favorite philosopher either. But history tells us how ideas are used, abused and tried to be implemented.

On that note we can discount capitalism in its entirety as well because well... look around. — Benkei

Capitalism is fervently discounted all the time and likely will be continued to be opposed in the future too. Yet Netherlands is a quite nice place to live in.

Shall we now ignore what Smith wrote? Say? Mises? Only Marx is vilified because it's politically expedient. — Benkei

I'm not so sure if only Marx is vilified, especially when some have started to judge historical people from viewpoint of our present time and not as children of their age.

Yes, the Communist Manifesto should be understood in the context of it's time, and Marx himself acknowledge that the proletariat might just end up demanding higher salaries, yet it shouldn't be difficult to understand how people will take it when you write things like:

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production

Then people reading Marx like gospel will go for those "despotic inroads".

It's just like populism: the adversarial juxtaposition of people can lead to ugly results, because people are divided to "us" and "them", good and bad.

Yes, let's look at history. What did Marx do other than be a committed democrat during his lifetime? Your bias is obvious and your lack of knowledge and understanding of his work apparent. — Benkei

I'll repeat: It's one thing what the economist / philosopher thinks, it's another thing what the implementation of those thoughts lead to.

Of course. It’s just weird to use “Marxism” to refer to a system of government, because it’s primarily an analysis and critique of capitalism. It implies that Marxism is necessarily against democracy. — Jamal

I think the critique of "Animal Farm" was against Marxism-Leninism. The story obviously was about Soviet Russia. I think that the Spanish Civil war had opened eyes of Orwell. For many fighting on the Republic side, that did happen.

And yet you invariably demonstrate not to have actually read him. Marx wasn't against democracy at all. — Benkei

What has in history come of the attempts of doing Marxist revolution? I'm looking at history, not selected quotes from Marx. Naturally communism ought to have democracy, but the little trouble with that is that the class enemy tend to be the people you would have in any democracy. Yeah, Marx perhaps didn't intend it, but many times these revolutions come to be at ground level things like killing the rich (and vice versa, killing working class activists).

It's one thing what the economist / philosopher thinks, it's another thing what the implementation of those thoughts lead to.

Besides the question is far older than Marx as the question of wealth distribution, which in my view is one the core differences between the left and the right, is a question that you had already in ancient Rome.

Marxism isn't a political theory but an economic one. Maybe read him some time. — Benkei

Marxist movements have been, as you know, political. Perhaps then I should use Marxism-Leninism. But anyway I think here it would be proper to talk about authoritarian states.

And actually I was taught also Marxist economics in the university as part of history of economics. (By a marxist, actually)

I think the mistake that ssu makes is in implying that it is also a system of government. — Jamal

One party rule might not change the basic system of government, but reality with a one party system does have major differences to a multiparty system. For example, the German Parliament, the Reichstag, did operate during the Third Reich. Always giving unanimous consent to the Führer.

But democracy is not the usual outcome of a populist revolution. — Vera Mont

Populist no, definately. But notice that populism (not to be mixed with something being popular) is confrontational and adverserial: it's us, the ordinary people, against them. Be they the leaders, the elite, the rich or some ethnic minority that is seen to dominate.

Populists don't want democracy. They just want to gain power and once in power they usually have to find the enemy somewhere else.

Democracy is the usual outcome of a gradually dismantled monarchy. — Vera Mont

Or just like in Germany, Czechoslovakia (with then dissolved itself) and in the Baltic States, can come back if the state has been earlier in history a democracy. And that's one thing positive about democracies. Yes, you can get an autocrat elected, who does a self-coup and changes the democracy into being in name only, yet democracies can recover.

A long process of democratization, not a big clash of arms. — Vera Mont

Few countries have been able to transform from a monarchy to a democracy (usually becoming constitutional monarchies) without any violence. Sweden comes to my mind. With the UK people usually forget that the country was a republic (if you can call the military dictatorship that) for a while.

Do Finlanders go off into the tundra to avoid governmental interference? — frank

Lol, no. Neither do the Swedes.

Interestingly Finns do have a quite different view about their state and government that the Americans. We are just happy that our country has survived as an sovereign state. Looking at other Fenno-Ugric people in Russia, it's quite clear that our tiny population is quite expendable. Nobody would have given a rats ass if the Finns would have been assimilated to Russians and never had their independent country.

Hence we have a lot of faith and trust at our goverment. Small place, not much corruption, everybody knows nearly everybody. Heck, I do voluntary work for the government! :meh:

A humiliating defeat might not be enough to get rid of Russian hegemonic ambitions once for all. — neomac

Yes, that is totally true. Especially when you are talking about Russia.

Anything can still happen. But usually failed wars don't bolster jingoism and your willingness to use force again. Usually the result is the opposite. After the Vietnam war the US wasn't eager to fight similar wars. It needed for the Cold War to end and 9/11 attacks to happen before the US was ready to go recklessly everywhere to fight "The War on Terror". Now with Afghanistan fallen and the Taliban with their Emirate back in charge, notice the absence of anyone talking about "The War on Terror".

Unless it brings to the dissolution of the Russian federation. — neomac

But note, this fear of the dissolution of Russian federation is actually the pillarstone for Russian imperialism. Catherine the Great said something very crucial when she said that in order to defend her country's border, she has to push them further. Russia always portrays itself to be the victim, even if it isn't always Napoleon or Hitler marching into their country. This is the way the Russians are fed the propaganda of their imperialism: the evil West is out to destroy Russia. We must fight back!!!

Similar reasoning is evident in Communist China too: if China would let democracy work, then "the Middle kingdom" would collapse again due to separatism. Tibet and the Muslim west would go, but perhaps also the south and the north would separate.

These fears of course forget that India, which has so many different people and ethnycities and religions, is a democracy, and isn't likely to collapse.

But this may bring other problems to the West: the fate of the Russian federation’s nuclear stockpile, China hegemonic expansion in post-Russia federation states. — neomac

But those are hypotheticals, just like the lie that if Americans withdraw from Afghanistan and leave the country to the Taliban, it will become a haven for terrorists. Well, has it?

And the American contribution in the war in Ukraine looks suspiciously too slow-paced and replete with mixed-signals. — neomac

In my view in similar line with France and Germany. It took a year for Germany to accept that other countries can give their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. So talk about dragging their feet.

For the Europeans the future looks pretty grim, especially if they are not pro-active and coordinated in building their own foreign politics (like a “new deal“ with Africa? and South America?), and more autonomous in shaping their military security. — neomac

Europe is a confederation of independent nation states and will stay that way. They basically are far happy to have the US around. Yet Trump did spook them. The idea of the US leaving was raised discussion for example in the UK. The simple thing would be: Europe would arm itself more. Even if it arming itself already with a high rate.

Just look at how much Poland is doing:

(September 19th, 2022) Poland is buying almost 1,000 tanks, more than 600 pieces of artillery and dozens of fighter jets from South Korea, in part to replace equipment donated to Ukraine to help Kyiv fight the Russian invasion, the Polish Ministry of Defense told CNN on Tuesday.

The agreement, expected to be officially announced in Poland on Wednesday, will see Warsaw purchase 980 tanks based on the South Korean K2 model, 648 self-propelled K9 armored howitzers, and 48 FA-50 fighter jets, the ministry said. It would not confirm the value of the deal.

(AP, 1st Jan 2023) Officials said Poland is the first U.S. ally in Europe to be receiving Abrams tanks. Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak signed the $1.4 billion deal at a military base in Wesola, near Warsaw. The agreement foresees the delivery of 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks with related equipment and logistics starting this year. - The deal follows last year’s agreement for the acquisition of 250 upgraded M1A2 Abrams tanks that will be delivered in the 2025-2026 time frame. Poland is also awaiting delivery of American High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and has already received Patriot missile batteries.

Poland will start to produce the HIMARS system in country.

Exactly. But they couldn't succeed if the population at large didn't want to be led, right? — frank

Many times people aren't asked who leads them and try to stay away from the dangerous mess that is politics. If your country is a failed state, the biggest problem for you isn't who claims to be the leader.

And sometimes it is not even ask those who are put into power: for example emperor Claudius was put to be the fourth emperor of Rome, because the deaf limping guy was the last male in the family to survive the reign of Tiberius and Caligula. That he was found by the Praetorian guard hiding behind a curtain might really have happened.

Show me three dictatorships without individual, identifiable dictators having hijacked a system that was originally intended for the common good. — Vera Mont

Well, I can think of Vietnam (earlier North Vietnam), which after Ho Chi Minh hasn't had a similar father figure, but something like 14 different presidents (or something in that number). Then there is Myanmar, which has been ruled by generals for quite a while, not by one superior individual general. Either country isn't a democracy. A third one doesn't come to mind now, hence it's usual that a political movement that drives for political change by using dictatorial powers usually will end up with one individual as a dictator.

I don't understand. What perfect society? Which democracy makes it okay for leaders to be incompetent as long as they're not murderers? — Vera Mont

What I tried to say: in democracies people aren't always jubilantly happy about their elected leaders and there simply always is an opposition. That's why they change from time to time. And this is an inherent, structural issue in democracies: people have different ideas about what the best policies would be. Hence it's a fallacy that you could have an elected leadership that everybody, 100%, would approve.

In this case the best thing is that even if we don't accept all those that can win elections, at least they do have to share the founding principles of a justice state, starting from basics like people don't abuse their position of power, abide to the laws, and honor the democratic process.