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Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by mcv on Monday March 14, 2022 @11:35AM (#30673652)
> without a NATO like equivalent that guarantees protection

This is also the problem with Ukraine. NATO members may like Ukraine and India for being democracies, but that's not worth much if they won't step up to defend when those democracies are under attack.

I think the US, EU or NATO should form a broader alliance that extends this mutual defense to all democracies, at least when under attack by dictatorships. Not doing so gives dictatorships a free reign to attack democracies just outside NATO's borders, as we're seeing with Ukraine.

And I'm mentioning the EU because I think being a democracy should also automatically come with beneficial free trade agreements.

We like to talk much about how democracy is better, but if we leave struggling democracies to fend for themselves, democracy will always be under attack. I think that's a much better idea than allying with autocracies, as the US certainly has done way too often in the past.

Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by toyg on Monday March 14, 2022 @01:05PM (#30674985)
> Not doing so gives dictatorships a free reign to attack democracies

Well, over the last twenty years it's arguably been democracies doing the attacks, to be fair...

Maybe it would make more sense to rebuild supranational institutions that, y'know, actually make people figure things out. The UN Security Council has been effectively sidestepped since 2001, to the irritation of many. We need to rebuild mechanisms to resolve problems.