On the one hand, you claim to be looking for solutions, on the other you focus on attributing blame. Let's suppose for arguments sake, this is 100% Putin's fault. Now we are precisely zero steps closer to finding a way to deescalate the situation. — Baden

That was in response to Isaac, since he countered all my speculations on solutions with "the west and US is to blame".

But since we are on a philosophy forum, we can try practical philosophy. What could we do? Seriously, what could we do in the situation the world is in with Ukraine and Russia?

I don't know. You want easy answers, and then get mad when the world doesn't offer them to you. — StreetlightX

No, the "answers" or rather speculations I conduct are not easy answers. They're just in a compressed form. Why do you think papers are hundreds of pages? I'm not gonna write an essay form length answer just to convince people who cry "everything is the west and US's imperialistic's fault" as an answer to "how do we solve this?"

But no one seems interested in actually discussing this. So it's hard to deep dive when people just want to talk about "the west's fault".

I'm quite willing to admit that 'what needs to be done' is the kind of thing more suited to others better versed in the situation. Some principles of action include minimizing harm, stopping war, and deescalating as much as possible - how they can are are translated, I'm not so sure. — StreetlightX

Good, this is what I'm talking about. Practical philosophy. So how do we deescalate and minimize harm when dealing with someone like Putin?

But what I know for sure is that it is not suited to fatasists like yourself who dream of putting Putin in the Hague, or paint him like a cartoon villain who 'shoots staff to blow off steam'. — StreetlightX

Hague is a real possibility. They're investigating the invasion as it unfolds. That's not my "fantasy". And "shoot staff", well maybe not shoot, but he poisons people on a regular basis. People have been killed. What if he actually is as delusional as some speculate, as some have speculated on analyzing his behavior the past weeks. I don't grab these scenarios out of my ass. I think it's more likely that you picture all of this in a cartoon way and downplay the seriousness of a delusional madman with the power he has.

Your need for some kind of 'punishment' or 'payback' and 'blame' - which seem to be the principles animating what you say - is literally genocidal. — StreetlightX

I don't care about punishment or payback. Whatever makes you reach that conclusion is totally up to you. Why I'm talking about Putin getting killed or removed or end up in a Hague court, that is not "punishment" but the removal of an unstable power from office in order to not have some trigger happy madman holding parts or the world hostage with nuclear threats and murdering people in the name of the empire. It's YOU who interpret what I say in this way because you cannot seem to grasp the fact that violence in this in this situation of war is a solution. Of course, the following events can be chaotic, but the immediate threat is happening right now.

No one who treats the world like a fucking Disney movie ought to be offering any opinions whatsoever. — StreetlightX

That's your interpretation of what I say and you also just pointed out that I should be silent, I should shut my hole because you don't agree with your own wildly inaccurate interpretation of what I'm talking about. It's not a good sign when you ask for better quality and give that as a response.

I don't know, I haven't yet had the opportunity since you've offered zero citations to support the notion. Cite one of these experts and we'll see if I'm inclined to 'brush them off'. — Isaac

What citation? I'm not writing to publish an essay here. Since the first sign of tension at the border towards Ukraine, I've been refreshing my own knowledge of everything related to all of this and through this conflict, I have two-three news outlets going simultaneously while deep diving and researching any development that happens. It's around the clock. And through all of this, I use rational induction of the facts and speculations that exist at the moment. Like how things changed drastically when nuclear weapons came into talks. I'm doing my own analysis and if I were to publish a paper of course there would be citations on a whole other level.

I could ask of you the same, where are your sources for the conclusions you make?

As you allude to - the killer, poverty, social exclusion, gun control, parenting, schools, video games, erosion of social value, government deafness, corporate dehumanising...

And what would we discuss in such cases? Not the killer themselves, there's nothing we can do about that, some people just go wrong. We'd discuss everything else... The bits we can actually do something about. — Isaac

But you're the one who keeps talking about who's to blame for all of this, so who is it? I'm the one who speculates about solutions. But I've also speculated that Putin might as well be fucked in the head, delusional, living in a fantasy of power, much like terrorists like Breivik, but with much more power under their thumb. But you keep returning to blaming the west and the US and NATO. What is it? Who's to blame?

If you want to create some fabrication where none of those factors apply then you're simply asking "if the only person to blame is the killer, then who's to blame?" That's just definitional, the question is whether this is such a case. — Isaac

My scenario was an analogy in order to find out who's to blame. Putin came from KGB, with great power during the Soviet era, then it collapsed. Then Boris Jeltsin started reforming and getting drunk, dancing around Bill Clinton. Even if the economy started recovering, when Putin came into power, the seed of his will were already planted. He must have felt embarrassed to see Russia in the way it was in the 90's. His ambition to build the empire back has nothing to do with the US or NATO. US imperial crimes and all the shit they've done is another discussion, there's no disagreement there that the US has blood on their hands and is guilty of a lot of shit, but none of that has anything to do with Putin's ambitions other than challenging his ambition. He might have seen the US expansion, trade, influence as a threat to his inflated idea of a new empire, and since USA is part of NATO, of course he felt that its expansion was a threat. But NATO is an alliance of defense, the "police" in my analogy (it's just an analogy for security). Russias "friends", the former other nations of the Soviet Union, had no ambition to be part of Putin's delusional ideas, but they knew that they can't just say no. They knew that they would either conform and surrender as a puppet (like Belarus), be invaded and assimilated, or have the option to join NATO in order to feel secure from Putin's aggression.

As long as your media outlets are independent trustworthy sources, you can listen to a lot of eastern political scientists confirm exactly what I'm talking about here.

I have yet to hear exactly what the form of "the west's" fault fit the narrative of Putin? Did "the west" push influence and western ideas into Russia after the wall fell? Probably, and probably because that was a natural reaction to the corrupt propaganda machine that fell with the wall (and was later built up again) opening up new channels of info and communication to the rest of the world for the people of Russia. There's no wonder that Putin has the strongest supporters among the oldest generation people in Russia while most young people are against everything that Putin is doing, wanting a more open society, more communication and collaboration with other people in Europe.

So I ask again, who's to blame? If not Putin and his embarrassment and will to rebuild the Russian empire? If not Putin and his delusional skewed image of the rest of "the west". Every time I hear people talk about why Hitler did what he did, it's like the biggest question of the 20th century, the "nature of evil" etc. Why would Putin be any different? Can he not be exactly as delusional in his own ambition and goal just as Hitler was in his? How is that not a perfectly plausible conclusion to Putin's action? Why would "the west's fault" be any more rational as a conclusion? Because my conclusion (as well as many researchers as I mentioned) is too similar to "an American off-brand Marvel movie"? Maybe just take out that Occam's razor and look at the facts.

First, the compromise will be reached, and things will come to normal as it was before Russia invaded. — Number2018

Likely, we will know what the talks led to at any minute now. But it will not return to normal, the west has lost trust in Putin and even if the worst sanctions get lifted, the trading sphere might be damaged for a long time.

Second, Putin will be ousted from power. — Number2018

If sanctions do their job and the war is a bloody stalemate for Putin, the people of Russia will not let Putin off the hook. This is what I hope for, not the bloodshed in Ukraine, just one person's blood, by the people of Russia who had enough of this shit.

Third, Putin will stay, and there will be a profound transformation of his regime and the world’s geopolitical order. — Number2018

This is the most likely outcome. Putin is too stubborn and Kreml has spent years creating an image of him as a tough guy. So he will try and spin the narrative so that a loss is still a win in Ukraine and then because of the broken trade and probably some sanctions left as a punishment for his actions, he will isolate Russia more, going in the direction of North Korea's relation to the world.

Fourth: He will never surrender, never ever, ever. He will not go out without a bang and he orders nukes on big capitals in the west. Either people just accept his order and do it, or they refuse, as has happened during the cold war. He will then spin the narrative in some way, or shoot some of his staff to blow off steam.

If you construct such a bomb, you know what it can do. — EugeneW

So, the person taking the scientist's knowledge and making their own bomb. Is he to blame? Or still the scientist? If the knowledge is out in the world and someone chooses to construct and use that bomb. Is he innocent?

You could secretely roll a stone ball up a mountain. And release it. But if you are seen doing it, people will stop you. How to stop Putin from waging his war? Trying to stop him literally, by taking him captive, or killing him? What will happen? — EugeneW

So the person pushing the stone is innocent because he isn't seen?

We see the killer, do we stop him? Or let him do whatever he wants? If he shoots up the mall, killing innocents, children, maybe even blowing up the bomb, should we be proud in waiting it out, not doing anything? I mean, if it was his parents' fault, his upbringing, maybe that is enough? If we blame them and ignore the killers actions, that might be enough to make us feel that we did our best?

But who was to blame? Is Oppenheimer to blame for Putin's action? Or who's to blame for what Putin is doing?

The scientists who invented the weaponry. — EugeneW

Sure, they can be blamed for opening the door to the severity of the situation. But even if he didn't have a bomb, he still had the gun. If he didn't have a gun he could have used a kitchen knife. If not any of that, he might use his own hands or picked up a rock. Is the rock to be blamed?

...maybe let's not engender more people suffering getting killed? — StreetlightX

And how do we do that? By staying silent and letting Putin do whatever he wants?

A position literally no informed commentator holds. — Isaac

So, you basically mean that whenever you hear someone actually saying it, you can brush them off as being just uninformed, convenient.

There's debate around just how much culpability the US and Europe have. — Isaac

I guess Ukrainians won't have time sitting at the table discussing this at the moment? So, while we're at it here's an analogy...

Who's to be blamed when a rampage killer shoots up a mall? Let's say that the upbringing was both tough; with borders and discipline, but also loving, inviting, leaving room for the killer to have options in his life. But he chose to kill, shoot up the mall, kill children and adults, security guards, and the police. Then he says that if anyone interferes he will blow up a bomb somewhere in the city. Who's to blame here?

If the upbringing was harsh, really extreme, getting beat down and tortured, it would be easy to see the deterministic causality towards the events. However, if the upbringing was perfectly loving, everything as perfect as possible, then many would argue there isn't a strong causality between that and the act, which would mean the killer was broken, some chemical imbalance or something. But if not that, if the upbringing was balanced, strict, but also loving, would that mean there was a choice? Choice or chemical imbalance?

Do you mean that Russia has been treated unfairly? The Soviet Union collapse wasn't really "the west" fault, it happened from the inside. So what then? Did we treat them badly in that we fucked their economy? No, that was a natural consequence of a state that fell. The economy started to recover over the years. Was it "the west" fault that when Putin came into power he consolidated the wealth and power into him and the oligarchs?

Now let's say that this killer had friends. These friends don't really like him that much, but they're still his friend and he, their friend. They have some chats sometimes, but even more, their relatives and other friends love each other. Everyone is like a big family, brothers. But then the killer really just wants these friends to be with him all the time. They, however, have grown into adult independent people who want to have their own life, but the killer doesn't want that, he wants them to live at his place, like the good old days. All their surrounding friends and relatives get confused, they just want things to cool down, but the killer gets angry and he beats them all up. No one likes it and they don't want to be with him anymore. They feel so threatened by him that they file for police protection. This is something the killer really doesn't like, so he threatens everyone, he threatens his friends, he threatens the police, he threatens any bystander, any civilian including children, and people he doesn't know at all. So he starts the killing, he kills them all.

Who's to blame?

Understand why you feel strongly about this, but a solution will come from a sober analysis. If you don't try to understand your opposition's perspective, you won't be able to deal with them effectively. It's like being in a poker game and thinking throwing your cards in your opponent's face is going to help you beat him. — Baden

I feel strongly about passive attitudes where the only thing going on is circular arguments that boils down to "all of your solutions are wrong because others are also bad in the world" or "all your solutions are wrong because we cannot do anything - all hail Putin!"

I've asked for additional solutions when someone thinks mine is "simplistic" or "stupid" or whatever label I get, but so far I get no solutions.

In a time when theoretical philosophy becomes totally irrelevant and practical philosophy is everything. What's the practical thing do to here? Because so far all I've heard seems to be Putin apologists trying to justify what's going on in Ukraine, and it is downright disgusting to hear.

I would like to hear some practical solutions to Ukraine, how to deal with the nuclear threat, how to deal with Belarus getting nukes, how to deal with the fallout of economic sanctions, how to deal with China's relation to Russia, how to deal with Putin himself.

It might be that my proximity to these events makes me more passionate for a solution, but I'm so sick and tired of passive attitudes and nonchalant dismissal of the current suffering. Can people just stop making their arguments with the prefix of "I know people are suffering and getting killed but...."

And there it is - the Marvel comic book picture of international politics. — StreetlightX

I asked for your solution and it was just a bunch of nothing. This is then your response.

Yeah gee, who gives a damn about continental crisis, how passe right? And who knows what the 'solution' is? Maybe part of the problem is wild bloodlusty agitators happy to crank up tensions with a nuclear power because they need to feel like they are 'doing something'. I know that it may come as a shock that the world is more complex than 'bad guy bad' and 'is good when good guy hurt bad guy' but that's kinda how things are. — StreetlightX

You mean that the actions "the west" is taking here are just "bloodlusty" agitations? Yeah, helping Ukraine defend themselves against murderers trying to claim their nation for themselves is "bloodlusty". And let's look at the Russian army of kids, not even sure why they're there. Cannon fodder for the grinder, yeah, don't do anything, don't try anything, don't make any effort to try and pressure Putin to back off.

This passive "solution" is really great, it really helps everyone! And after they've murdered the president, after they've killed all opposers, after all of it we can just lean back and switch on our Netflix binge and relax. I mean it was nothing, some civilians got killed, a nation was taken, the Russians are now stronger. Also, let Belarus get some nukes while we're at it, let him play with that as well. Who cares? As long as we don't risk fascism rising, we can never stop pushing that back, because we are unable to do many things at once. Yeah, no, let's just put up our feet, take a deep breath and just, smell that nice clean air of our own farts.

Give me a fucking break.

Oh yes, case closed, Putin invaded a country so no critical thinking so what if power prices surge through the roof and fascism is given an accelerant and ordinary people everywhere are hurt; your bloodlust must be satisfied now. — StreetlightX

Who gives a shit about power prices increasing when people are getting killed in Ukraine? Increasing fascist movements is always a concern that is always being battled.

Nothing of that is any solution to the situation. How do we deal with what is going on in Ukraine? How do we help stop it? Or are you just ok with letting them be killed? Are you ok with the Wagner Group reportedly being in Ukraine for a month before the invasion preparing to kill the Ukraine president? Should just not give a shit about any of that? What's your fucking solution?

Generally I imagine one deals with nuclear weapon threats by not poking a fucking nuclear weapon bear in the eye. That's just me though. — StreetlightX

So bend down and get fucked. You're an inspiration to the world.

Russia is viewed now as it has been since it emerged out of the wreckage of the Soviet Union in December 1991 - as a broken, if sometimes petulant, vestige of a once-mighty superpower.

Of course, because the corruption didn't disappear, because the despots didn't disappear, because the propaganda didn't disappear. If almost every parameter of the Soviet Union is still there, just with new clothes, how else would we view Russia? They've made no efforts to battle any of it, it's just a more open country to be able to play on the modern geopolitical and economical arena. Without that, it's going back to its roots once again, which is what some are speculating will happen now, Putin isolating Russia further from the world.

Which apparently you are totally OK with exacerbating because Putin bad and fascism we can deal with later — StreetlightX

He invaded a country, killing civilians right now as we speak, and threatens others with nuclear weapons. Case closed.

Are you saying that we should keep debating, keep just not doing anything, just let them suffer and die by Putin's hand until we've solved the fascism thing first. Seriously, sometimes I think people are unable to tackle a critical crisis where every minute counts.

What's your solution to all of this? How would you help Ukraine? How would you deal with something like nuclear weapon threats?

Oh? Tell me how to interpret this: — StreetlightX

As a balance to what you said? Not everything is a downright conclusion of factual end-point events.

Survival? I mean everyone here seems to want a weak, diminished Russia without any say on the worldwide stage, maybe like Great Britain after it lost its colonies. Well at least it did not try to take them back. I am for the status quo (pre -2014) but no-one likes that. — FreeEmotion

Survival? By taking Ukraine? In what way is that survival? Please explain what the actual threat is? All those nations, including Ukraine, want is to be their own nation. Putin and Russia is huge, no one has any interest in obliterating Russia, even many Russians themselves don't want any of this. So if it's not survival, what is it then? I really want some strong argument for the survival angle, like, actual threats to Russia's existence. And how they cannot exist in the normal nuclear superpower as it is right now.

I mean, if Putin wasn't a big bag of shit and if the nation wasn't built on propaganda, Russia would be a tremendous alliance partner and prospering nation in all sectors. How is this not just the fault of purely Putin and Russias corruption problems? Survival? In what way?

"let's just talk about Putin and nothing else" — StreetlightX

But this is not true. Right now we're in a thread about this conflict and of course, such events, especially in Europe create such media coverage because it's of huge consequence to Europe. It's also a huge economical consequence to the entire world.

It's like it becomes a competition or a kind of "equality of conflicts".

Doubly especially when your response to the threat of a rising fascism is "oh don't worry they'll implode on their own account". Which is of course, literal insanity. Much like fantasizing about Putin in the Hague. — StreetlightX

I didn't say it will implode on their own I said that it's not that black and white that fascism will surely rise more. You handle these things with the same level of simplicity as you try to criticize me for. If your only deduction of my response was that "don't worry about fascists they will just fizzle out on their own" you clearly just interpret what I write with the least amount of effort possible. Basically strawmanning.

All blame must be placed on Putin, the madman who must be stopped at all costs. What gain does this polarisation serve? — Isaac

You have continued to push this argument while people have answered you many times. Here's the thing, there are nations who are independent nations that were previously part of the "Russian empire" and Soviet. Putin want these nations back, because he is a delusional fucker who wants to be a Tsar in the glorious Russian empire. Since most others realize that Russia keeps getting these morons in power, most nations that were part of the Soviet Union, but are now independent nations, just want to be left alone, to be their own nation. Putin doesn't own these people or nations, even if he thinks he does. So these nations ask to be part of NATO in order to have a good defense against the risk of being invaded and claimed by a delusional despot. Some nations have much less balls, like Belarus, who bend down for Putin instead. So the choices for these nations are either to join NATO, bend down for Putin or get invaded and killed. Ukraine thought too long about joining NATO and they won't bend down for Putin, so they get invaded. Also, NATO isn't US. US is a part of NATO, but NATO is an alliance, there are many nations within NATO. But in your mind that just means they are "brainwashed" by US. The thing is that the US might very well have economical imperial interests through NATO, but that is not the collective mindset of NATO.

So, yeah, this is all Putin. This is part of the Russian tradition of being assholes to whomever they think is their possession. To argue that "the west" pushed Putin to this is a fucking delusional point of view.

Today it's Russia, yesterday it was Islamic terrorism, before that Saddam Hussein, Colonel Gaddafi... The existential threats painted as justifications for economic imperialism are an unbroken line in which Russia is just the latest. — Isaac

You still don't know what is going on right now. What's the economic gain for Russia by invading Ukraine? Explain please

China has years. Look, I'm just saying, this isn't some internet RPG where people get to takes sides in some kind of black and white manner. The assumption that making Russia (more) of a pariah state will automatically translate into more support for the West is very wrong. And it is good that it is wrong. — StreetlightX

I'm not saying it isn't complicated. Since everything is speculation, it ends up being very broad strokes.

At the moment, the crisis is also in Yemen and Israel. It just so happens that Ukraine aligns with Western interests to make this the cause du jour. And the idea that when or if this crisis 'ends', the West will give a shit about Yemen or Israel is laughable. — StreetlightX

No, it just happens to be that this is a large invasion by a superpower that could lead to extreme consequences for the entire world. Especially when Putin threatens with nuclear strikes. As I've mentioned, I don't think people realize what is really going on here. For example, I've been debating against Israel's actions against Palestinians for years now, but that conflict is a decades-long crisis that while it needs to have the focus of the world, it doesn't change the fact of the immediate crisis of what is going on at the moment and the severity of it.

I really don't understand when arguments boil down to "yeah, but what about everything else that's going on?" In my opinion, that's not really a valuable way of dealing with all of this. We could very well be discussing the Israel/Palestinian conflict and the argument "but what about Ukraine" would pop up.

That the west doesn't give a shit about any of it is just a blanket statement. "The west" is a lot of nations. Sweden for instance, has a lot of support for Palestinians. So, if one nation of "the west" doesn't give a shit, that doesn't mean another nation does the same.

a price hike will hit the working class first and foremost as the price of living will shoot up considerably (more). As it stands the people who stand to benefit from this are nationalist identitarians everywhere, and it's not clear that the neoliberal elites of Europe will be willing to pay that price. And this to say nothing about the new wave of refugees that is about to hit Europe, already having a 'migrant crisis'. — StreetlightX

Depends, many of the fascist parties have also been taken into the normality of parliament, which means many of them are now showing how incompetent they actually are with normal day-to-day politics. In Sweden, we have former neo-nazi fascists as the third-largest party in parliament playing innocent politicians and since they've grown so large, people demand them to solve normal problems, which they can't because they are fundamentally incompetent. And the migrant crisis isn't the same this time around since more nations are willing to take on more migrants so it spreads more than before where Sweden, for example, took in a much larger portion than most others.

So the complexity doesn't end just with risks with increased fascism, there are also movements against it. A lot of movements also relied on Russian propaganda machines helping them to rise up, that's not gonna happen in the same way after this.

and the new type of nuclear reactors are not entirely ready to be used either. — ChatteringMonkey

We've had the technology for many decades. The only reason it's not fleshed out is because there wasn't any weapon capability as a byproduct. You know, if you have a normal nuclear power plant, you could use some of the nuclear matter used for nuclear weapons as a side gig. Thorium is too good for bad nations.

But I know Finland has been looking at it. There's a growing interest in it as the need for nuclear power still needs to meet the risks they have.

fusion is still 50 years into the future even with recent improvements — ChatteringMonkey

Not really, the recent improvements are recent, as in... like two-three weeks ago. Timeline hasn't been updated since they're still evaluating the data. But the timeline is always based on predicted development. Predicted development never takes into account fluke accident major breakthroughs. But I agree that fusion is nothing we can rely on as a solution yet, I'm just saying it's closer than people realize. And the will to solve it is huge, throwing money on solving it is a priority, especially if one nation solves it and starts exporting power, that nation will be filthy rich.

My point is that tanking the economy is probably never a push towards other solutions, because as you scramble to stay afloat, the last thing you want to do is make big investments in future-oriented transitions. — ChatteringMonkey

It's a push in that it demands another solution. And "scramble" to stay afloat is not really true. An economic crisis may look like the one in 2008, but did that "scramble to stay afloat"? There's still plenty of capital to invest in new solutions, it's just that the financial world always need to balance the entire economy so as to not break regular folks. However, since regular folks seem to not care about climate change and politicians are not willing to do what it takes, a crisis that pushes everyone out of their comfort zone will lead to hard times in the short terms, but better times after a few years. Also remember the jobs that gets created by investing in new technologies.

I agree on nuclear, if they are ready, but you need large coordinated investment for that. — ChatteringMonkey

And this is what I think gets pushed when we can't rely on oil and gas. People feel the ground shake under them and they will start investing much quicker.

Just think of the semi-conductor shortage. Because everyone was just in their comfort zone ordering chips from Taiwan, no one cared for what a shutdown would look like or mean to the world. Only after the crisis did both EU and Intel start expanding into new factories to be able to cover future needs.

Crisis always leads to some type of opportunity.

I don't particularly think Sri Lanka or Ethiopia particularly gives a shit about Taiwan. — StreetlightX

Sure, but Taiwan's shutdown of their semiconductor plant created a worldwide shortage, so an invasion before the west has been able to build up new factories will be a shutdown on the entire world of tech. And even if we get other factories up and running, we still need that factory to be able to fight the shortage. The fallout of that factory being hit, shut down again or anything like that would be extreme for the entire world, far more than any oil and gas from Russia. It takes years to build new factories and the one in Taiwan is one, if not the most advanced in the world. Russia has nothing even remotely close to that level of importance globally.

Frankly, anyone hyperventilating about Ukraine but not having a word to say about Israeli apartheid or Yemeni genocide simply does not deserve to speak, ever. — StreetlightX

I have plenty to say about that. I never understood that kind of argument though... that because we talk about one conflict or problem of the world, we "ignore" others. At the moment, the crisis is in Ukraine and with Russia's, or rather, Putin's threat of nuclear launches. When this crisis has been resolved or turned to more stability, there's plenty of time to continue working to fix everything else that's broken on this planet.

Without fossil fuels you basically have renewables and nuclear energy. Renewables will not get it done any time soon, and probably never, because they just are not that efficient, reliable, easy to use, and not even that green to begin with. — ChatteringMonkey

I think you should check that again. There are a number of renewable options that have reached improvements over the past few years which have increased their viability compared to how it was before. And it doesn't matter, it has to be done anyway, whatever people think about it or however hard it hits the economy, it has to be done in order to decrease the rate of climate change. On top of that, since the investment in improvements of renewables has skyrocketed in a very short period of time, all while we just recently had a major step forward for fusion energy, which changed the projected timeframe for when we might solve that problem. If nothing else we also have Thorium nuclear power with power plant designs that can utilize nuclear waste almost until they're half-lifed to irrelevant levels before storage.

My point is that we NEED to have a push towards other solutions than gas and oil and we just got this with moving away from Russia's export of it. So while people can take the pain that creates as a sign of support towards Ukraine, that kind of pain could never be endured just on the basis of "we need to do this for the environment". People don't care about the environment, they care about people suffering. We can argue this is because they're stupid and don't connect the dots of how the environment create suffering, but the fact is that we hit a lot of flies in one hit at the moment. We can weaken Russia's hold on the west, remove their trading diplomacy cards so we don't have to be puppets of the oligarchs and Putin's ego, all while pushing the necessary push towards better solutions than oil and gas. Even if we don't go renewable soon, just build Thorium power plants. I feel like people don't know how safe these designs really are, it's way better than any other solution at the moment until renewable match up with it.

Again, and vice versa. The world relies on China just as much as China relies on the world. And in a much bigger way than Russia. It would take either extreme stupidity or extreme courage to try and 'cut China off from trade' - which amounts to cutting the West itself off from its own manufacturing base. And the West is nothing if not filled with cowards. The West does not hold all the agency in the world, contrary to what people would like to believe. — StreetlightX

Absolutely, but at the same time, people didn't think "the west" would be so unified against Russia as is the case right now. What I meant was that China is very volatile when it comes to trade, far more than Russia and China has a lot of investments in foreign companies. When Sweden excluded Huwaiwei from building out 5G it was a major hit against the Chinese government. Even if most trade routes stay the same, the will to let Chinese companies invest outside of China, as well as place production in China, will be lower and China isn't just relying on trade now, they need to expand and influence through investment abroad. After 2014, the exposure towards Russian trade has been lowered between European nations and Russia, which means the blowback of the current sanctions isn't that extreme, except for those with high reliance on gas. So if China buddies too much with Russia, it could create a fallout against China where nations get scared to have too much exposure towards a superpower that could very well do exactly the same with Taiwan as Russia did with Ukraine.

China has been very good at specifically making friends with those the West doesn't like. — StreetlightX

I would say they're covering all bets. They have trade with everyone, but they won't like being shut off from a big portion of the world if they cuddle too much with Russia. But the main positive thing I think is that they now see how extremely bad the invasion is going and how extremely powerful the strike down is from the rest of the world is that it might lead them to rethink any invasion of Taiwan. China has a lot more trade with the world than Russia had. If they get struck with similar sanctions, now that the world has shown it is possible to do this, then it's gonna be far more dire for them than it is for Russia.

Interesting speculation that Putin may cut off gas and oil unilaterally, long before the West even tries. Not something I thought of. — StreetlightX

I'd say, rip the band-aid already. The world needs to move towards sustainable energy and this could be a good way to speed that up. Even if it would create enormous economic problems in the short term, it can be done. And when it stabilizes, we've essentially cut Russia off from any gains from it, even if Putin wants to turn everything back on he wouldn't get anyone to want it anymore. I mean, it's still mostly Putin and his oligarch friends who benefit from that industry.

Sure, he could trade with China, but I see a lot of skepticism from them since they risk a lot of trade diplomacy problems with the rest of the world the further this drags out. The more unpopular Russia becomes on the world stage, the less China will want to be its friends. Even if China acts like they don't care about the west, the truth is that their entire economy hangs on an extremely built-out trading network. It's their entire circulatory system and they don't want to mess with that.

Most of the people are surrounded towards him because of fear. It is not as easy as we are debating both you and here in The Philosophy Forum. Probably, Putin was always clever enough to build up a fear atmosphere where nobody has the courage to go against him — javi2541997

It reaches a point. You can scare people into obedience until they become more scared of the actions of that man than the man himself. When that happens, that man will be dealt with.

That's sounds pretty difficult. Remember that Putin was a KGB member so he knows all the cheats and tricks inside a State. He is surrounded by closer oligarchy friends who would help him anyways, because they got all the wealth thanks to him. — javi2541997

Are his security personnel these oligarchs? Are they rich in the same way? Does he not have security people around him?

I'd say that the best way to remove Putin is to speak to everyone in his security personnel. Instead of a black op, message everyone surrounding Putin that if they kill him and order a stand-down on all nuke orders and army in Ukraine, they will receive $50 billion (can be taken from the oligarchs), diplomatic immunity, and whatever "medal of honor" possible. Adhere to the idea of heroism, that they'll be hailed as heroes who saved the world from a tyrant.

If you rule by fear, you risk having to fear everyone yourself.

This could lead to an underpaid staff of security personnel, being close to Putin, having a seed planted in their mind that there is a solution to the situation and a big gain in their own life, as well as a positive reputation globally if they act.

I don't expect either of these scenarios. — Baden

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

The nuclear rhetoric is just a way to counterbalance this imo. — Baden

He will either act upon it, or he will be hunted as a war criminal after this. This is how people talk about this at the moment. Some officials have said that the Hague Tribunal is waiting for him after this.

I don't fear Putin winning, I fear him losing. If he loses he might act to take down everyone with him in that fall. As I said before:

No one in their right mind would use nuclear weapons today... Putin is not in his right mind. — Christoffer

And yet... — Isaac

And yet...

US has the most competent army for this kind of operation. Who else would be able to do it? And what is the alternative? Can you provide anything of substance in analysis at all? How would you deal with Putin holding his hand over the button of nuclear attacks? What's your solution?

But I think this ought to be taken extremely seriously. I can understand why most people believe that these weapons just won't be used, it would be way too costly.

But I'm not as confident. — Manuel

No one in their right mind would use nuclear weapons today... Putin is not in his right mind.

That's the clearest argument for why this is really serious.

Who do you see carrying out this magnificent plan? — jamalrob

Most likely a covert op by the US initially. Then an alliance of US troops with troops from European nations (not through NATO, but each nation's regular army) to seize the nuclear weapons and keep civil war from escalating. The pressure on the temporary leadership of Russia to stand down arms, retreat Russian forces from Ukraine, and all nuclear orders to stand down immediately.

The remaining forces and people over the long-term change in Russia would be UN forces and personnel.

You're saying this without having considered possible consequences. Suppose we declare March 15, the Ides of March, All Tyrants' day. What then? Who or what will follow Putin in Russia? Do you have any idea? Would it become a fairly elected republic or would it be an Augustus or a Caligula? — magritte

Was this the case with Hitler? To think about what comes after and therefore not act? Of course there will be consequences, they are extreme consequences.

The best scenario would be to remove him, let's say eliminate him and the oligarchs. Then seize their money to a fund for rebuilding both Ukraine and changing Russia's political landscape. Next step would be to remove state propaganda sources, shut down media with state ties and give the void to independent media outlets to become official. Then, seize all nuclear weapons to remove the risks of rogue nukes. Then, initiate a republic leader, a president that has support from a large portion of the people of Russia. So far, that would be freeing Navalny and install him as the president. This is a temporary solution in order to build-up a proper democratic function. This is always a problem in nations that didn't have ideas of freedom and democracy within the population, but a large portion of Russia's people want to have a proper democracy, Navalny wouldn't have the support he had if there wasn't an underlying will to have this kind of state. Over the course of a few years, the development will be monitored by the world in order to push down anyone who sees the void after Putin as an invite to do the same.

Of course, this is the best scenario possible, but an immediate threat of nuclear war is more critical to push down than what comes after. It is the final type of threat, there's nothing worse than it so anything after Putin cannot be worse than nuclear war.

So very true. Unfortunately. The mentality is already there, it just needs the right conditions.
I don't see this being stopped anytime soon... — Amity

This is why I earlier said that Putin needs to be put down. Whatever the outcome of the current war, he is such a big threat to the world that there's no point in dragging this out keeping the world in jeopardy. There's no point in having the ideal of pacifism or diplomacy when someone is literally holding the hand on the button of nuclear war.

Black ops, intel, infiltration, whatever it takes. Remove him and his oligarchs before his current embarrassment turns him into a ticking time bomb. The only problem is that we don't know where he is exactly. Maybe anonymous could hack the nuclear codes to aim at his location instead.

If Putin really makes a reality of using tactical nukes against the west, then a lot of people in this thread will go silent with their naive ideas.

He will be remembered as a leader who switch on a war in XXI century. It sounds lunatic if he is somehow proud of it — javi2541997

He doesn't care. Why did terrorists like Breivik do what he did? Is he proud? Does he care that people hate him? No, he was driven by a narcissistic ambition to be known. There are thousands of examples of this all around the world. It's just a matter of time before a leader of a nation has the same kind of mentality.

How have you determined that his motive is to create a Russian empire, other than taking (some of) his words as truth? All you've done differently is decided in advance which of his words you're going to believe - the ones which fit the narrative you've already committed to. — Isaac

Because I actually research through what experts and researchers on eastern politics, Putin and Russia concluded.

The evidence for why you can't take his words as truth is right there in the videos he makes. He's been lying every time about this invasion. Even to the extent that he recorded the message about the invasion at the same time as he spoke about "diplomacy" with the west. We know this because of the metadata analysis of the video.

The inductive conclusions I make is based on the gathered expertise from researchers on this topic. But what you are doing is just guessing and having opinions based on taking his words as truth.

If you lack the ability to understand where to draw the line between truth and propaganda, then you have not done enough research on this topic. The research informs how to decode what Putin says.

But... which is the main goal of having nuclear weapons? I do not see the value of having a destroyed world. Then, I do not see any powerful country interested on using them. — javi2541997

People need to understand that it's not Russia that is acting here, there is no Russia, there's only Putin. It's his actions, his decisions, his rule. It's like asking the question about a serial killer: "Why would he use these guns and knives? Why would he just destroy everything?". He doesn't care, he's old, he wants to be remembered. If he faces embarrassment as an outcome of this invasion, the entire image of him as a macho leader with great power falls.

And in that fall he will take the world with him. This is not some off-brand Marvel-movie villain shit, this is a real threat to the world and people have to understand this fact.

Now Putin has put his nuclear capability on high alert.

Can people finally understand why Putin is a fucking threat and needs to be put down? Is this becoming clear to all the naive apologists of his agendas and ideas? This is serious.

... by showing that it is (in part) the US's fault, Europe's fault. Had we left well alone Putin would have been robbed of both strategic gain and narrative excuse, but our meddling to further our own economic interests has, in fact, provided both. — Isaac

But this is not Putin's ambition. He's aiming for rebulding a Russian empire, he wants to be a "big man". I think most people are so into traditional geopolitical discussion and reasoning that they forget that there have been dictators who weren't driven by economic reasons. He doesn't care about money, we even see that as evidence in how he reacts to economic sanctions. He doesn't care about it because he cares about rebuilding "the empire". People need to understand that Putin acts are more in line with Hitler than any regular head of state in the world today. He has another vision for his rule, his "empire".

To blame the US for this is just plain stupid and just follows the propaganda machine from Kreml. Of course Putin uses blame as reasoning for his actions, but his goal has nothing to do with the US expansion, unless it just interferes with "the empire". He has no right to invade nations that are independent today in order to expand his empire and any "interference" by the US, or rather, NATO by making these nations members isn't anything more than threatening his ambition to invade and claim these nations for himself.

To say that a defensive alliance like NATO is an offensive threat to Russia when they make nations bordering to Russia members is just uneducated on what NATO actually is.

The truth is simple, NATO is NOT a threat to Russia other than blocking Putin's ability to easily invade and claim these nations for himself. THIS is the threat Putin feels from the west. NATO would NEVER attack Russia, it's not what NATO is about. But since they block an easy invasion, it makes Putin desperate. There's no wonder Putin invades Ukraine, even at a great cost, because he fears Ukraine joining NATO to block his invasion attempts.

This is what is going on.

If Putin is indeed the mad man everyone paints him, then why the fuck have the US and Europe spent the last decade poking him with a fucking stick? — Isaac

Read the above. They're not "poking him" they're blocking his delusional attempts at reclaiming nations that are today independent nations. Without NATO, Putin would have no problems invading any one of them and he would have done it long ago.

Which strategies for stopping Putin don't involve America? — Isaac

Who cares? It's like your argument is that if the US is not involved, then it's all fine, but since the US is part of all of this, then it's all just some evil geopolitical agenda. You have no argument.

I see. So when Putin talks about...

the expansion of the NATO to the east, moving its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders.

...we should ignore what he says, all propaganda? — Isaac

Do you actually just listen to Putin and take his word as truth? A former KGB mastermind who's now a dictator, violent towards his own people, aggressor and invader of Ukraine and murderer of civilians?
You don't think that he tells the story that gives him what he wants?

NATO is a defensive alliance. You don't seem to understand what that means. That Putin complains about NATO moving east, he wraps that in a false narrative of NATO invading Russia. But the truth is that he won't want to be blocked from expanding his "empire" west. This is probably why NATO has been expanding east in the first place, to push back against Russia invading nations that are today independent nations.