The US has a history of handling territory back after invasions, which makes people less nervous. China’s invasion /annexation of Tibet for example made everyone on it’s borders very concerned.

> The US has a history of handling territory back after invasions

Really?

No they keep it, which is why the US presidential elections are so very contentious in the US swing states of France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and the Philippines.

Instead, they just plant military bases in the country and set up a puppet government that supports the US. Amounts to the same thing.

In the short term perhaps. However, I doubt many people consider Germany a puppet of the US. Japan for example has the 5th most powerful military in the world.

‘Amusingly,‘ Cuba has a US base and a rather antagonistic relationship. However, long term many countries like US bases because money flows in one direction from that base into the local economy. It’s the same reason so many bases exist across the US.

> However, I doubt many people consider Germany a puppet of the US.

As a sidenote from a German: This is somewhat delicate and often talked about in German population. Not really happening in media, but I think everybody has his stance on this and some pros or cons. Anyway it's not easy for Germans.

Charles de Gaule forced US troops out some 50+ years ago, so they settled mostly in Germany. In the coming years, US will relocate 12,000 troops from Germany to Belgium, because Germany wants them out.

Now Belgium has the NATO HQ, SHAPE and the 12,000 extra US solders, in addition to many thousands already present on its soil.

Yes, it's similar to the situations in Japan and South Korea where the US has what are essentially US supporting puppet governments in power. It's impossible for these countries to kick the US military bases out of their lands.

The Philippines did.

Because a volcano destroyed the bases. Not because the Philippines forced the US to leave.

Edit: And so what if bases are easy to rebuild? I'm talking about the politics of the matter. The US didn't want to spend money on rebuilding the base, so they didn't. The decision had nothing to do with the Philippines government. Which is my whole point. The Philippines government couldn't have kicked the US bases out if they wanted to.

Bases are easy to rebuild.

If the US declared Iraq to be part of America, then yes.

Or the next time American claims a chunk of Mexico or Canada for themselves.

Iraq was a huge mistake, but it is not the same as trying to seize land from your neighboring country.

So killing a fuck ton of people is okay as long as you not going to grab some land (but take some oil or any other resource), right?

Ethically, no. But at the nation state level, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that countries care much more about protecting territory than people, especially people in far away places. That’s both the story of colonialism, and the story of countries standing by and doing nothing during various genocides in the 19th and 20th century.

So yes, I would absolutely expect countries to respond differently to the invasion of Ukraine than Iraq. Same as how countries have reacted quite differently to Russia’s behavior in Ukraine than in Syria.

>invasion of Ukraine than Iraq.

>behavior in Ukraine than in Syria.

See, the thing is - Iraq and Ukraine were `invaded`. So you can actually compare the response from the other countries.

Syria is a very different story as Russia was invited there. So it is obvious why the reaction to Russian presence there is different.

Yet when the US 'enters' the scene - everything is different. In both cases.

And this is something people over here in Russia can't really understand. Why the hell bombing the hell out of Iraq was okay, but cutting off a small region in a relatively calm manner in Ukraine is not.

Because Russia took a part of Ukraine, or at least is trying to. It freaks out Europeans to see another country in the region invading neighbors and claiming territory. It’s the same basic reason why the Brits responded very poorly when the Germans invaded Belgium; everyone in the region starts worrying if they’re next.

For all the flaws of the US invasion of Iraq, the US didn’t claim Iraq as US territory. Yes, we’ve maintained a military presence there, but that isn’t the same as putting up a US flag over the country and saying “this is ours now”.

Well, officially they didn't just take it, they "guaranteed the local population's freedom", who then "chose" to "join the Russian federation".

It's a joke, of course, but I don't think it's really that different from what e.g. Turkey (with the US' blessing) does in Syria, Israel does in Palestine etc. I don't think either of them are really about territorial expansion as much as they are about security concerns. Russia is -quite understandable- not too trusting with regards to promises of peace, so they won't let a very high-value strategic location like Crimea (which hosts their black sea fleet) fall under NATO control, and they want a buffer in a kind of DMZ between themselves and NATO, which they had in Ukraine before Ukraine's strong man fell out of favor and the pro-Western movement gained power.

If they were after territorial expansion at any prices, they'd probably just pocket the Asian Ex-Soviet republics. Much larger gains including resources, not in Europe, ergo NATO does care much less.

Similarly, China's posture in the South China Sea can be explained in the same way. Building artificial fortified islands isn't an aggressive stance, it's defensive. They remember very well that the British did to them and they understand that the US isn't a friendly power and has every reason to want to limit China's power, as they massively profit from being the world's only global super power.

So, next they will invade Poland because so they want a very high-value strategic location and they want a buffer in a kind of DMZ between themselves and NATO? Or Baltic states?

Where they would stop?

Based on Putin’s public statements, we can presume that he wants one of the following.

1) To rebuild the old USSR territory, he seems to consider ex soviet bloc countries to be wayward states, not independent countries.

2) To expand Russia so that the border it shares with NATO countries is narrower and anchored to a defensible barrier. To my (amateur) eyes, that would possibly be the Dnieper river, although other good choices might exist.

1 is largely ideological, 2 is based on the fact that Russia is facing both demographic collapse (particularly when you focus on ethnic Russians) and it has immense borders that are already very hard to garrison. Due to the layout of Europe, Putin could potentially drastically strengthen his western border with more territory, which might be imperative to do before the Russian population gets too small to garrison it’s current borders.

Okay, so let's be clear.

It's okay to invade a country as long as:

1. You do not claim its territory or its part as your own (but you can maintain a military presence there if you feel so)

2. You do claim its territory or its part as your own but only if kind people of the first world are bit too close to the territory in question

This begs for a simple question: will the US and EU lift their sanctions if Russia gives Crimea (and to Donbas regions) back while 'maintaining a military presence' there?

You keep saying “it’s okay if” as if you’re trying to catch me in a moral trap. This is annoying; I’ve made it very clear that the invasions discussed here are ethically wrong.

The equivalent of what Russia is doing in Ukraine would be if America annexed part of Mexico (again). It’s hard to imagine anything short of “we are giving the land back and pulling out” would calm nerves over a suddenly expansionist US. I imagine Canada in such a situation would be extremely jumpy for a long time, given their relative proximity, and “we gave it back but it’s still garrisoned by us” probably wouldn’t be good enough for them.

For actual equivalence, I think it would be much more fair to say that Russia can maintain a military presence in Syria, as that seems much more morally and geopolitically equivalent to what the US is doing in Saudi Arabia, and that denouncing Russian bases in Syria would be pretty hypocritical given what the US is also doing in the region. Although both countries should probably just stop what they’re doing in the region all together.

What has the US invaded and taken as part of its own country?

Puerto Rico

Texas (invaded by Americans and annexed)

Guam

Hawaii (USMC supported coup by European and American businessmen)

Technically, Puerto Rico and Guam were already invaded by Spain before it was handed over to the US in 1898. With Texas, I believe it won its war of independence against Mexico and later annexed by the US (1835). If you're going to go back that far they US "invasions" is probably fairly tame compared to other countries of that time period.

US interests overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, and personally I believe a day of national reckoning over that is still inevitable.

However people using it to justify Russia annexing Crimea in 2014 strains credulity.

You'll notice that the comment I replied to complained about invasions, not annexations. Something the US does more regularly than electing a new president.

Other than that, the US has been annexing little recently, but in history quite a bit.