The Kuwait war was after an invasion by Iraq and at the invitation of the government there, and the US were restrained enough to halt at the Iraq border.
The Syrian war was not started by the US, and it has played a minor part there. In fact, it is Russia that has indiscriminately bombed Syrian cities and targeted civilians and hospitals there.
Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 and the refusal of the Taliban to end their protection of a terrorist organisation that had repeatedly attacked American targets internationally before their deliberate targeted murder of thousands of American civilians. This does not seem comparable to Ukraine.
The Iraq war stands out for me as the unjustified and imperialist war of modern times. It seems to me that the atmosphere post 9/11 was used as a pretence. But even Iraq does seem different: Hussein was a brutal dictator and, at least initially, Americans were welcomed as liberators. In Ukraine we are seeing widespread civilian resistance to the invasion. But Blair and Bush should answer for their war crimes.
By far the biggest difference here, I think, is that by being a European war and through the potential for further conflict and nuclear conflict, this war has far larger international ramifications and strategic risks attached to it. To see European cities bombed is to be reminded of what has happened in the past and that it can happen again. That is why it is receiving so much attention.
that would be Al-Qaeda which emerged in 1988 out of the afghan mujaheedin who were financed until 1990 with more than 600 Million tax dollars by the CIA to kick out the Russians. Better luck this time? the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn.
1988 is also the year of the Halabja massacre pinned on Iran first by the US but it turned out that Saddam Hussein (at that time an Ally of the United States) carried out this largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history,[2] killing between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injuring 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians.
Bombing of Serbia was a bombing of European cities, specifically bombing of civilian population centers far from the front to terrorize the population. Also without UN approval.
They last gesture was massive ethnic cleansing. The US intervened when things went out of hand.
Putin risks to end up like Milosevic, a war criminal.
Now, even if those things were true, they are claimed by the proponents of bombing, enemies if you will, the same way that Putin is claiming there is a genocide of million Ukrainians in Ukraine. Do you believe your enemies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War
NATO bombing was not out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man (to Putin), just warring out of desperation. The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any deaths. How did this happen? Due to the mad man dying in 2000. I'm pretty sure he would have enacted order by butchering civilians again, inside "his" borders.
Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. Even though the leadership displayed aggression that was successfully deflected, the defenders made a deal to guarantee inclusion of the Serbian minority in the parliament (Croatia, Kosovo etc.)
Still, we have a country like Germany, that self-flagellates for decades and the sentiment of the majority is quite clear. While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. and yeah, every now and then, the most popular Serbian (Monacoan) tennis player will say things like "Kosovo is Serbia" with complete indifference and still be the Jesus like figure his father makes him out to be.
Nobody said it was out of the blue, but it was illegal, wrong and plain terrorist like.
>The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any issues. How did this happen? Lucikly, the mad man died in 2000.
And the best proof of NATO lunacy is that Kosovo declared independence in 2008 because they feared Serbia which at that point wasn't in Kosovo for almost 10 years, during which Kosovar population carried out pogroms of Serbs while the UN forces just watched.
Also Milošević died in 2006, never convicted of any war crimes. Later rulings on other people incriminated him but the same can be said for Tuđman. So, I guess if you die early you are not a war criminal.
>Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities.
It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote. As a minority from Serbia, there's lot of problems in that country but minority representation is not one of them. If I wanted I could go through life without ever using Serbian language, I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries.
>While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine.
Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.
Yeah, I guess he stopped existing in 2000 and had nothing to do with the peaceful referendum.
> Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.
How can you believe this? Which part of Ukraine declared independence? What country was supposed to be created out of this independence? Which leaders decided they wanted to create a new independent territory?
> I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries.
Well, if your country is in EU, the citizens of EU are not forced to learn any language, even if they live outside of their country of origin. Language requirements for non-EU exist due to EU being an extremely lucrative place to live. Moving to Serbia and trying to hop on social benefits will not be as lucrative, so language requirement for citizenship might be unnecessary.
> It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote.
In Croatia and Kosovo, there is no low percentage threshold. You are automatically in. There's no reason to believe the threshold is achievable, given that people in general do not vote.
Didn't those two breakaway republics declare independence?
>Well, if your country is in EU, the citizens of EU are not forced to learn any language, even if they live outside of their country of origin. Language requirements for non-EU exist due to EU being an extremely lucrative place to live. Moving to Serbia and trying to hop on social benefits will not be as lucrative, so language requirement for citizenship might be unnecessary.
I am not talking about EU citizens moving to another country, I am talking about minorities living in Serbia.
I am a part of minority that lived in the now Serbian territory for over 250 years and there's no legal requirement for us to learn Serbian. You can live your perfectly happy life without it. We have our schools, our communities so learning the Serbian language is not a requisite although most people learn it because it offers some benefits.
I found it odd that you thought I was talking about foreigners.
You mentioned that this cannot be said for a lot of EU countries. Turks born in EU do not have to learn German. Immigration within EU is free from language requirement too.
I do not even understand why do you think minorities not learning Serbian is impressive? Croatia and Kosovo both have schools that can use Serbian in their curriculum and no one is forcing Croatian on them. Similar things exist for Czech and Hungarian. No one is forcing these minorities to go to schools to learn Croatian.
> Didn't those two breakaway republics declare independence?
And were immediately annexed by Russia? How independent is that? Who's the new cultural head of these independent republics?
So Turks in Germany can have schools in Turkish for their children? Do you have a source for this?
>I do not even understand why do you think minorities not learning Serbian is impressive?
Because language rights are central for the survival of minority communities.
>Croatia and Kosovo both have schools that can use Serbian in their curriculum and no one is forcing Croatian on them.
Yeah, when they are not being stoned in Kosovo or have their Cyrillic signs smashed in Croatia.
Sure: https://www.schulentwicklung.nrw.de/materialdatenbank/materi...
That's the official lesson plan for non-German lessons in NRW; other German states have similar plans (teaching is devolved to the states in Germany). Notice that this is the plan used in the state-sponsored lessons; private schools are free to use their own plans.
1. The right to mother tongue: wherever in the world, the child must learn the mother tongue(s) of their parents to support the cognitive and psychological development.
2. The right to participate in the society as an equal: the child must learn the official language(s) of the society well enough to be able to understand and participate in the democracy, business, art etc.
On top of that, the bulk of the school curriculum can be in a yet another language, no problem, as long as these rights are ensured as well.
>And were immediately annexed by Russia? How independent is that? Who's the new cultural head of these independent republics?
They were not immediately annexed, no. Russia didn't even recognize them for a couple of years.
Crimea for some reason was annexed, despite leadership in Crimea wanting the same status given to two countries mentioned above.
Similarly, Ukranian army is not targeting Russian civilians in these regions and is not banishing them to Russia. There is no displacement of millions of Russians in Ukraine.
If you are trying to say "NATO bombing of Serbia is justified", therefore "Russia war against Ukraine should be too", therefore hypocrites, it does not really work.
In a way, they were implementing a century old policy of a guy named Vaso Cubrilovic who argued that Albanians should be expelled[2] from the lands Serbia (precursor of Yugoslavia) took in 1913.
What NATO did, is stopping exactly this from happening.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/10/26/under-orders/war-crime...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_of_the_Albania...
And as for that supposed policy of Albanian expulsion, by how much did the percentage of Albanians diminish during the Serbian rule of Kosovo? And by how much did the number of Serbs diminish during the Albanian rule of Kosovo?
https://www.rferl.org/a/yugoslavia-hague-tribunal-major-mome...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-serb-military-l...
Multiple ethnic "serbs" were convicted of genociding muslims.
Ethnic Serbs in Bosnia are a different thing, same as ethnic Bosniak in Serbia are a different thing. Also I found it telling that used Serbs in quotation marks.
Justifying bombing of Serbia because of Bosnia would be like justifying bombing of Belgium because of the Netherlands. Yeah, sure they are kinda allies but that's it.
With the 5 veto powers, this basically means nothing.
I'd also remind you that we have insufficient evidence to suggest that the aim was naive altruism. It could have been naively ideological: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...
Well, of course, because then America would have had to give Iraqis the same rights as other Americans, or build a discriminatory system where "real" Americans enjoy more rights than them.
Not that colonizing Iraq would have been justified, but since the war wasn't justifiable anyway - the decision to not colonize Iraq was not out of goodwill, but because it was cheaper that way.
Not plausible? I think you've been watching too many Marvel movies where good vs evil is "obvious"
As for the WMDs, I referred to Saddam's history, not to America's discredited invasion pretext.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/m...
Invading Iraq was on the agenda way before 9/11. The people that decided it are anything but naive.
>There are conspiracy theories that America invaded to steal Iraq's oil but they are not plausible.
Why not? The second largest oil producer in the world is invaded because of altruism out of their great heart. Geopolitics have nothing to do with that.
I believe is someone is naive here is you. At least you should respect as a valid and plausible theory(not calling it conspiracy in order to denigrate it) that the biggest army in the world are interested in controlling the energy producing countries just like any other empires before. And remember that was USA the ones that ousted the British Empire from Persia and the ones that toppled the democracy there.
If America's plan was to take Iraq's oil, what went wrong with the plan, given Iraqis still control their oil?
But there was a coalition of naive countries going along with the US.
And it wasn't a surprise attack without serious diplomatic attempts. And even then, the US did actually worry about the legality of the invasion.
It was a mistake, but it's not the same.
Did you forget the /s? Honestly can't tell if this is satire or not...
If the US attack Belarus with an unjustified casus belli like in the Iraq war, it would still be a huge deal just like the current war in Ukraine - despite everybody knowing Lukashenko is also a dictator.
The elephant in the room & the key difference between Iraq and Ukraine: There are substantially more people in the West who consider Ukrainian people are "one of us civilized people" compared to the Iraqi people.
It has nothing to do with imperialism as i don't see any annexations made by the US, nor puppet governments.
Ukraine, on the other hand, had territories chipped away from it, separatists backed up Russia for years and years, and now a surprise attack without forward notice. It's completely incomparable to Iraq.
Anyway back to the topic - we europeans look at this war as existential threat to our democracy, its not about just Ukraine anymore. That's why thousands javelins and stingers were provided by US, UK and other states which allowed them to defend till now. After Ukraine, it would be increasing russian circle towards west - baltic states, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. Thats 100 million of people who know very well how horrible the life is under russian oppression and terror.
Its also in US interests that this pans out with russians losing and stopping their imperialism - Europe is by far the biggest US ally (count 500 million relatively rich people), losing it would mean US power becomes progressively marginal in this world. Nobody free wants that, there are plenty of bullies out there, small and big.
It should also be said that, who is a bully depends on whose interests one happens to align with. Maybe transatlantic interests are always magically aligned forever but somehow I doubt it. One should wonder why or how that comes about, and at whose expense.
Who gives a f*k what some murderous dictator wants or not. That's undefendable position these days. He had done enough evil in this world in past 20 years and cost lives of millions civilians including many children that he can shake hands with Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Anything Russian is a big no-go. I guess they really have to build their tanks from wood now, since they failed with Armata tanks so badly (but for Russia predictably).
Do you also point out some traumatic events from Hitler's childhood as some form of excuse for his actions? He was also just trying to expand his country to what he seemed as more ideal setup and give it better future. This abhorable little man stands against everything western democracies value very dearly.
He managed to do 1 thing almost perfectly though - unify whole Europe and in fact most of the world in a way that leaders were failing for decades. Its just that its against him and his crooks and murderers. Hopefully the momentum will remain for long. As they say, the society is defined by common enemy, and well he is the best there could be right now. He would be comical if his actions were not killing hundreds of people every single day right now.
You really should educated yourself about Yemen. It is the worst war-caused humanitarian crisis going on in the world today. Worse than what is happening to the people of Ukraine, by far.
> But even Iraq does seem different: Hussein was a brutal dictator and, at least initially, Americans were welcomed as liberators.
> a. Killing members of the group;
> b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Crimean_Canal
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/world/europe/ukraine-russ...
I'm not pro-Putin or pro-Russia, but I'm looking at things objectively. If I had a browser history I could pull them from there but now the search engines are inundated with propaganda and I cannot find them. It is too late to get objective facts right now, unfortunately.
It is scary how facts become "facts" and now for you it is heresay from some random HN poster (me). Disinformation campaigns are effective.
Again, I'm not pro-Russia but just look at this thread to see that the pro-Ukraine crowd silence anything not 100% in their favour. We see the same thing in anti-Israel discourse online as well, where both sides vehemently do their best to silence any voice not on "their side", no matter how factual.
Few of those can be said about Iraq which is far away enough to seem some sort of abstract topic.
So, having war at home (vs. in a newspaper) is completely novel for us and therefore unacceptable.
I live in Sweden but I'm not allowed to vote in national elections while I look just as Scandinavian as your average Sven. There are hundreds of thousands of people living in Sweden who do not look like Sven at all but are allowed to vote. Is Sweden being racist against me? No, they're just discriminating in who is allowed to vote, only those with Swedish nationality have that right. I´m not a Swede, hence I do not get to vote. This is a form of discrimination, but discrimination does not equate "bad" - I would not advice any country to allow foreign nationals to vote in their national elections.
I think that in this case, multiple nato members think this makes Russia direct threat to them. You know, Poland is possibly next, because Russia always wants Poland. Eastern Germany used to be under Russian control too, what it means to Germans? Estonia probably sees themselves as target too. All satelite previously occupied by Russia republics. Russia is expanding again toward Europe and if Ukraine is easy, other European/NATO countries expect same treatment. If NATO countries further West did nothing, it would be sign that these countries will abandon others again .
Basically, Ukrainians fight for Polish, Slovak and what not freedom too.
Putin arguments about Russian history points toward expansion. Putin arguments about being entitled to Ukraine due to them being forced into USSR or Ukraine not being real nation points toward expansion.
Russian recent history is not a history of peaceful trustworthy nation either.
---------------------
Edited to add: the material help is not coming there from pure empathy alone. Germany did not provided actual guns able to kill because of them feeling bad for refugees. This was major change against previous policies and cant be explained by "we feel bad for their president after seeing his cool videos". It can be explained only by "we think we have stake in outcome and it matters to us".
Nothing even hinted that Russia is interested expanding beyond Ukraine, and not even the whole of Ukraine. So like I've said, it's fear mongering by our politicians to keep people living in fear, it's getting to comical levels now, I get offers for psychological counseling at work due to the Ykrainey situation.
Russia is a nation, why are you taking offense on that statement? It is not an insult.
> Nothing even hinted that Russia is interested expanding beyond Ukraine, and not even the whole of Ukraine
I mean, except Putin talking about how Ukraine is fake nation that should be part of Russia.
And the pre-written victory announcement state media recently published and then pulled back announcing the reformation of a single union of all the Russias (Belarus, “Greater” Russia [i.e., just plain Russia], and “Little” Russia [Ukraine]).
>I mean, except Putin talking about how Ukraine is fake nation that should be part of Russia.
Source?
first full English transcript I could find: (the English language Kremlin site where it was hosted is nonresponsive, and most major media is just carrying excerpts.)
https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censor...
> So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land.
Read the whole thing. If you're going to defend Russian policy online you should have a clear idea what you're defending.
There is nothing to contradict the view, that Putin doesn't want to restore the old Tsar or Soviet borders.
"NATO currently holds security dominance in Estonia, but according to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former top economic adviser, Andrey Illarionov, “Putin has his eyes on eventually reclaiming Estonia”.
John Aravosis, “Putin wants Finland, Baltic States, says former top adviser,” http://americablog.com/2014/03/putin-wants-finland-baltic-st...
- Ukraine is a democracy (not without its problems but getting better) and part of the west
- Casus belli were 95% lies (ok, this one is similar to some US wars)
- The attacker uses "culture wars" as casus belli (Putin refers to "degenerates" et al)
- The part of the attacker's casus belli that mentions Russian Empire also touches on several other east and north european countries -- perhaps this wasn't intended and the whole thing was just crazy rambling or perhaps there's something there
- The attacker is a crazed dictator who has been in power for 22 years and who might be lashing out due to his own deteriorating health
- The goal is to annex the whole country (there was extensive lying that it wouldn't be, but the actual goal has been revealed several times by video representations and accidentally published documents)
- The leader of the attacking nation has lost all credibility in the world's eyes
There's also no barely veiled threats by the US that we would nuke Iraq or Afghanistan etc. nor drop the ISS on them.
US bombing Serbia was long overdue, and should have happened sooner so the genocidal war started by Serbia would end sooner. The war robbed me of my future, yours probably too, and you're still apologizing the atrocities.
And it was Yugoslavian army that did those things.
The fact that you can't see the irony in supporting bombing of independent countries and at the same time not supporting it for those same stated reasons is unbelievable.
No, Serbia's leaders didn't like Croatia's and Slovenia's independence (or any ex-You country to be more exact), and did what Russia is doing now to Ukraine. So you're crying "not fair!" when US bombed Serbia to stop its expansionist appetite, but it was all right when Serbia's army invaded and wanted to annex Croatia as a part of "Greater Serbia". Cry me a river.
And it’s not like Putin cares about the people in the Donbas soo mich that he just had no other choice besides invading the rest Ukraine to protect them. I’m sure that Russia could have pressured Ukraine into allowing some UN supervised referendum in the region if they cared even the tiniest bit about that.
Propaganda/media is one of the most useful ways to steer a population, it even doesn't have to be particularly good propaganda if its voluminous and exclusive.
There is no more Belarus as a country. It is Russian puppet state with an appointed governor Lukashenko. Occupied by the Russian army at the moment. Those who were against are either in prisons or fled the country. The country is North Korea basically at the moment. Most of the people (~60%) hate Lukashenko and Putin.
And 60% is not that much to be honest.
It was very obvoius. They released a video of helicopter hits, high res artsy photos of destroyed armor, some dude flying a drone over a disabled UA tank zooming out to the Russian tank column and the Snake Island POWs calling home.
Propaganda works and CAN justify aggression in eyes of the people.
-- https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...
Because some rando on GitHub is such an authoritative one!
Sheesh...
> I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision
The country (Russia) in its current form has just ceased to exist. The entire parasitic elite class just got cut off from everything they stole during all these years. The entire human potential of Russia just got nullified for at lest 20 years. The push towards green energy (and I hope nuclear fusion) just got accelerated. NATO and EU memberships just became essential for any European country. The prospects of nuclear disarmamant are nullified.
The war isn't exactly a blitzkrieg now, but it still has a good chance to succeed -- but that's not what matters. It's the consequences that matter. They will affect the course of human history.
I think the west (Europe and USA) will be perfectly fine. It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.
Unfortunately, given the current state of world politics, I am afraid we will instead get a new version of Treaty of Versailles. In which case you will be right.
Most of the world knows that most Russian civilians are also just victims of Putin and a corrupt system. I really hope there's a solution here, where after this is all over, Putin and his buddies can be executed for war crimes and the West can help both the Ukrainians and the Russians rebuild. Ironically the solution in Russia might actually come from Ukraine: it seems like they were able to really deeply root out corruption in their country, with help, in the early 2010s. Maybe after Putin is gone, we can somehow use the same strategy in Russia? I know the scale is completely different, but I'm a hopeless optimist.
I sure hope, you know who to thank for that.
I sincerely hope all this goes away as fast as possible and we all can resume our lives in peace. Including you Russians.
I don't see how that can happen with Putin, but fortunately he is far from being the only person who can lead Russia.
> I sincerely hope all this goes away as fast as possible
It's one of the rare case (nuclear war threats), where it may be the safest solution. Especially now that a few public figures in Russia have officially standed against that war. There may be an opportunity to reach a critical mass at home.
If they go out protesting, they will be fired from their jobs -- their only source of income. Not exactly a good decision, especially during the crisis times.
The sanction squeeze shifts the calculus.
They won't starve to death in March, but it won't be long before buffers are empty. There is a window to do something about it.
Putin is unlikely to win this war, Ukraine have been given near unlimited anti-tank weapons by the EU/US, and have air superiority now with extra MiG's donated by NATO and TB2 drones from Turkey. Locals are set and prepared for guerrilla warfare. All the usual allies have distanced themselves from Russia. The writing is on the wall.
Is it likely that another oligarch will take his place? Is there any indication that top military might force his replacement? Is any of the economic suffering imposed now likely to force everyone to come out to the streets?
Edited: 'gorilla warfare'
Sorry for being that guy but even though gorilla warfare would be genuinely horrifying, the term is actually guerrilla warfare. Which funnily enough can be translated as "warfare warfare".
> Can I ask, how are these economic restrictions affecting you in your daily life?
My company has two ongoing long-term projects (both took about 10 years), which now increasingly look like wasted time and money. If I'm cut off from my income source, I won't be able to retain key people, and will have to halt the development on both projects.
> what is the likely end game now for Putin?
Endgame for Russia: after the death of Putin, in about 20 years from now we go the old tried-and-true route: crash, Perestroika, re-integration with the west -- but this time, we will be disarmed and de-fanged. Then we remain in that subdued state until the next drastic world-changing event (such as the advent of strong AI), and after that all bets are off.
I am not sure you are aware of this in Russian media, but most of the media shown in the west about Russian military, is of young conscripts who clear have no desire to be in the war, and claim they had no debriefing they would be deployed in Ukraine. The narrative (true or not) in western media is that Putin is using non-ethnic russians and young concripts as cannon fodder in the frontlines to wear off the ukrainian forces.
My point is that the general sentiment in the west is that the economic choke is necessary to avoid escalating NATO involvement (And nuclear threats). But in the west the sentiment is (for the majority) not antagonist to the Russian population itself .
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44501/reports-that-ukr...
Blame Putin.
It's so easy to think to yourself that you cannot make the world a better place and then to give up and only care about yourself.
Well, sometimes it fires back.
You should start thinking about future Russia. Maybe it's not too late to turn this catastrophe to a victory of the Russian People. Maybe you are not alone.
I’m not too sure about this. The main problem is there isn’t a new form to replace it with, or a new government to replace Putin with that would act any different - for instance, not constantly assassinating people in Europe with chemical weapons.
It does seem like a good time to leave, although an even better time would’ve been before the currency collapsed.
> It does seem like a good time to leave
This. I'm tired of the personalisation of the behaviour of the Russian government. Putin didn't launch this war all on his own; he's the head of government, he isn't Napoleon Bonaparte.
I'm uncomfortable about the sanctions regime that is being imposed. If the Russian economy is destroyed the result will be chaos, even if the war ends tomorrow, and Putin is deposed. I don't relish the prospect of political chaos in a country with more nuclear warheads than any other.
But pronouncing psychiatric diagnoses on him isn't very enlightening. If he's a megalomaniac, then half the world's governments are headed by people who are similarly mentally ill. Discounting aggressive foreign leaders as "mad" is bound to lead to incorrect conclusions and bad decisions.
He seems to be motivated by some pseudo-mystical beliefs about Russian national history and destiny. I imagine that by now, there are few at senior levels in the Russian administration that don't share his views. Oligarchs are a different kettle of fish; they're not nationalists, they're egotists. But from what I've read, oligarchs have nowadays been largely supplanted in government by old buddies of Putin from the intelligence services.
I suspect his generals will be the first to crack. They will be worrying about mutinies in their largely-conscript army. Their soldiers didn't sign up for a civil war against their "brothers" (which is what this war is, according to Putin). And generals tend to be practical, rational people.
So maybe I'm wrong; maybe he does have a Napoleon complex.
It saddens me that Russia won't be able to contribute human capital towards any of these goals for at least 20 years.
Ukraine is a desperate attempt to defend the state against much more powerful enemy. Ukraine is used as a pawn by the West. It is sad.
If NATO was willing to risk attacking Russia, they would already be fighting in Ukraine, which is a much lesser risk. They'll arm Ukraine but they won't fight there.
Not lying means that diplomacy has a chance.
Nor does the US act unilaterally. It's always a coalition.
When it comes to the middle east and further away places (geographically and culturally) the political willpower is often more oriented toward alliance contracts with other nations and idealogical reasoning... not perceived existential threat.
[edit] changed wording (socially -> culturally)
All people in eastern Europe fear him and russians. We will do anything to stop the grazy wannabe-Hitler and russians.
The wars started by the US typically have the goal of establishing a democratic government. Japan is an example of a successful outcome. Iraq has a functioning democracy now. This policy is often criticized as "nation building." The long term goal is not for the US government to control these countries.
In the case of Japan, the US rebuilt an enemy after they attacked the US without a declaration of war and made them an ally and trading partner.
I am a US citizen, and sometimes I am really ashamed of my country. We have done some really bad stuff. We’ve done a whole lot of shady stuff that is complicated to pass simple judgement on. But the US has done good stuff as well. They loan money, send aid, rebuild, provide. Some times the motives are duplicitous in these acts of good. But the bottom line is, when I travel abroad I feel like I can confidently say “we’re like a two year old, sometimes we do sweet/good things, and other times we’re naughty.”
When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.
And so I’m honestly curious, is Russia as a foreign actor just that much more self interested? Or do we not hear about it in the West, because it doesn’t pay to report on it.
Is there any country in history with comparable economic and military power to the US that has a "cleaner" record in terms of "bad stuff"? I'm specifying comparable power to specifically exclude tiny nations that never had the capacity to do "bad stuff."
Strongly recommend Dan Carlins podcast on the rise and fall of imperial japan to learn more.
The red army took Berlin and ended the Nazis. It was an Allied victory but it came about because Russia put their full might into stopping Hitler.
This is not insignificant if you don't like what the third reich was up to.
It came at a tremendous cost to mother Russia, 20M of her sons died in the process.
I encourage you to visit the war memorial in Treptower Park. It is built out of the red marble stripped from Hitler's Reichschancellery, and it is a hauntingly powerful place.
Not to mention that a significant part of the Soviet Union's losses in WW2 came about from a similar disregard for the lives of its own soldiers.
This is not to discount the sacrifice made by those who fought and died, though.
(And Treptower Park is, as you say, hauntingly powerful. I've been there on three occasions when visiting Berlin.)
Spending your citizens lives cheaply is not a noble thing.
The US had nukes and its manufacturing and soldier population was massive. Coupled with the Western allies Germany was going to lose once America entered the war (see Churchill’s memoirs). USSR did accelerate it though.
We need a place where Snowdens of the world could go.
There is an interview from Yale University with Vladimir Pozner that is very worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ
It is absolutely insane that western media does not report anything positive on Russia and I hope it is obvious that it can't be a the case that a state can be that comically evil. And if not foreign policy at least cultural stuff should at least receive some positive attention with Russia having a rich tradition in theater, ballet, music and so on.
The USSR did plenty to support its lesser developed republics. In fact that is is why many Russian nationalist saw it very critically, seeing as their land would give more that it received. Even today Russia has extremely good relations with the countries of central asia. As for foreign aid not only did it sent lots of aid to other socialist regimes but also many national liberation movements speeding up massively the de-colonization of Africa.
The Russian Federation is also doing plenty of good. They help keeping the massive dominance of the US and it allies at least a little bit in check supporting many countries that are shunned by them. Syria would have been overrun by terrorists by now if Russia had not helped them.
Of course you can twist every good news to make Russia look bad. Russian athletes are successful? Only the result of doping. Stability in Syria? Supporting a bloody dictator. Protecting Snowden? Ugh, just cheap propaganda. Developed Covid Vaccine? Totally rushed and fake numbers.
If you believe "the West" to be the good guys then everything that Russia does will appear bad.
Russian Fed is an organized crime family with a hundred million hostages controlled by mob bosses Putin is a dictator.
I'd argue that even China and Russia, while not allies - are also not enemies.
US would 100% attack and invade any country in their “sphere of influence” if they felt threatened, it’s just that their soft power is better and nobody even dares to try.
The idea that Cuba was minding its own business is laughable.
Nobody wants a psychopath neighbor on a moscow leash with nukes 90mi from their border…
I guess Russia doesn't want a neighbor on a US leash with military bases on their border either...
The funniest thing was his hearse braking down and having to be pushed by his soldiers. Really summed the mans contributions…
Try to tell me with a straight face that the previous Afghan government was democratic and represented the will of the Afghan people. You cannot.
Iraq's democracy is about as successful as Russia's, that is, not at all.
The US installed a dictatorship in South Korea, and overthrew or contributed in the overthrow of many more.
South Korea's an interesting example. It was a dictatorship, now it's a thriving democracy. Ditto for Japan, Taiwan, West Germany. Sometimes things turn out alright.
"Justified"? Probably not, but we'd have to determine what alternative actions America/allies should have taken instead and compare.
I mean, "avoid all US-caused civilian deaths by letting AQ continue to operate from Afghanistan with impunity after 9/11" would not obviously have been the right thing to do.
I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision, not to justify it or engage in whataboutism.