You will find some on "the left" [0] who ostensibly condemn the Russian invasion but claim that, by providing Ukraine with the weapons, the intelligence and the financial aid it needs to defend itself, the West is somehow prolonging the conflict and causing greater suffering—the implication being that without such help, the war would be over much quicker (i.e. Ukraine would soon be defeated by Russia).

While given a particular set of moral values this may be a legitimate argument, it is strangely inconsistent with other comparable events. Virtually nobody on "the left" will ever claim that France and the UK should have not declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland so as to decrease suffering.

Going to a more local context, in my home country of Spain, many on the left hold a historical grudge against France and the UK for not coming to the support of the legitimate Spanish Republic in 1936 when a military/nationalist coup triggered what eventually became the Spanish Civil War and lead to Franco's far-right dictatorship. The USSR, in contrast, did come to the aid of the Republic for better or for worse. However, funnily enough, whenever I bring this point up with those who claim the West is "prolonging suffering" by supporting Ukraine, they never concede that France and UK's decision at the time would be consistent with their claimed non-interventionism, nor that the USSR prolonged suffering by supporting the eventually defeated Spanish Republic.

[0] I hate the oversimplification and forced dichotomy that results from talking about "the left" or "the right", hence the quotation marks.

"Virtually nobody on "the left" will ever claim that France and the UK should have not declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland so as to decrease suffering."

For this I have the following possible explanations:

- They supported a war against Germany not for the protection of Poland but in order to topple the fascist government and stop the atrocities that were being committed.

- They supported an early war against Germany because they believe that the German government would keep going with their demands and that the war was inevitable.

- They are against the war but admitting it would be a social suicide.

- They don't have an opinion about it or just have not voiced an opinion about it. (as it is an event that happened decades ago instead of one that is happening at this moment)

"funnily enough, whenever I bring this point up with those who claim the West is "prolonging suffering" by supporting Ukraine, they never concede that France and UK's decision at the time would be consistent with their claimed non-interventionism, nor that the USSR prolonged suffering by supporting the eventually defeated Spanish Republic."

This is interesting. What is their usual counterargument? I Presume that they either don't have a consistent logic behind it or they believe that protecting Ukraine would not benefit the common people (or would benefit them marginally) in comparison to the Spanish civil war which in their mind supporting the republican side would benefit the common people enough to counterbalance the loss of lives.

> > "funnily enough, whenever I bring this point up with those who claim the West is "prolonging suffering" by supporting Ukraine, they never concede that France and UK's decision at the time would be consistent with their claimed non-interventionism, nor that the USSR prolonged suffering by supporting the eventually defeated Spanish Republic."

> > "What is their usual counterargument?"

One that stuck to my mind was, believe it or not, that an internal armed coup against a democratic government does carry the moral obligation of other democracies to intervene and defend it if said government requests it—which is not the case apparently when a democratic government requests support to defend itself from a neighbouring state which invades it without the slightest provocation. It's basically all post-hoc rationalisations of their emotional beliefs.

> For this I have the following possible explanations:

> - They supported a war against Germany not for the protection of Poland but in order to topple the fascist government and stop the atrocities that were being committed.

What on Earth are you talking about? France and the UK did not come to Poland's help in September 1939 not due to an altruist aspiration to stop Nazi atrocities that had not yet begun, but due to a mere fact that neither country was ready for an all out war with a heavily industrialised Nazi war machine.

Nazis invaded Poland on the 1939-09-01, but the first ever death camp at Bełżec in Poland had not been built and had not become operational until March 1942 (Operation Reinhard) with more to follow over 1942-44. The truth about the nature and the scale of Nazi atrocities had not surfaced to Western Allies until 1943 which was well into the WWII, and when it did surface, the Western Allies at first refused to believe in reports due to the unfathomable and previously unseen scale of the atrocities.

According to the official Nazi racial doctrine, all Slavic peoples (Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Russians – all of the Slavs, indiscriminately) – with Poles specifically – were subject to a complete and indiscriminate extermination; from Himmler's speech on 1940-03-15 in Poznan:

  Himmler spricht in Poznan vor den versammelten Kommandanten der Konzentrationslager. Eine seiner Aussagen: "Alle polnischen Facharbeiter werden in unserer Rüstungsindustrie eingesetzt. Später werden alle Polen aus dieser Welt verschwinden. Es ist erforderlich, dass das großdeutsche Volk die Vernichtung sämtlicher Polen als seine Hauptaufgabe versteht.".

"…das großdeutsche Volk die Vernichtung sämtlicher Polen als seine Hauptaufgabe versteht" is key here.

The worst was yet to begin in 1942, not in 1939.

This is irrelevant. We are talking about current leftists with our current knowledge of history.

But France in WW2 did just that - it failed fast its territory over to Germany rather than going the trench warfare and scorched earth path.

"Failing fast" was hardly an intentional decision on the part of France. In fact, one of the principal reasons why Germany was able to so quickly overwhelm France was precisely because France was still preparing for the last war, i.e. trench warfare. Related to that, after the fall of France, the British Cabinet was intensely split between those on the side of Churchill who believed that the UK should "never surrender", and those on the side of foreign secretary Lord Halifax (and initially Chamberlain) who believed that the UK should offer peace terms with Germany to avoid a crushing defeat [0]. Had Chamberlain not changed his mind and Halifax's view had prevailed, one could argue that the UK would have chosen to "fail fast" and thus avoided the Blitz and much further suffering of its people—but at what cost?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_cabinet_crisis,_May_1940

Providing weapons is a major intervention. That’s what the US did in the war between Pakistan and Bangladesh, and they ended up supporting a genocide.

You can try to rationalize a distinction by saying in that case, the US failed to support the people seeking independence. But then you have to be in the business of deciding which people’s claim of independence is legitimate. Supporting the jihadists in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union didn’t exactly end up well. Intervention is always rationalized in the moment.

The jihadist claim of independence against the Soviet Union was, if nothing else, entirely legitimate.

(Preemptively: you do not under any circumstances "gotta hand it to them", etc, etc).

I spent the first two months+ of the war in Ukraine (my home, but I'm not Ukrainian).

I completely accept that opposing interventionist foreign policy in the case of Ukraine support is a valid stance for US citizens.

However, I hope that in this case the US continues to support Ukraine - we need it - as the price Ukraine has paid for Russia's truly barbaric aggression is already too high.

I'm not sure that Russia attacking Ukraine can be considered a regional conflict.

First, when a country with nukes is involved in a conflict I think a good case can be made the "region" is the whole world if there is even a small chance nukes might be used.

Second, Russia, the US, China, and others have an agreement to not use military force against Ukraine (the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances). Russia is violating that agreement, which automatically makes it a conflict with the US and so not regional.

Non-intervention is all well and good but it is also the policy the West followed towards the Nazi’s in the 30’s.

WW2 could have been stopped before it started if Britain or France marched into Germany (ad they could have won at many points) at any time between 1933 and 1939.

So by arming Zelensky et al, maybe we are creating a monster (unlikely) but maybe we are stopping a much worse monster from starting WW3 (more likely).

There is a big difference between acknowledging there will be no Team America: World Police to help Ukraine in its regional conflict (currently the bipartisan position of the US government, as well as commentators of all stripes) and various individuals explaining that actually, Putin has been annexing parts of neighbouring countries not associated with NATO in self defence against NATO imperialism and Ukrainians mostly preferring closer economic and political ties with Western Europe to Russia is US imperialism (unlike Russia invading to enforce Putin's preference for closer economic and political ties!) and what about Ukraine having neo-Nazis etc etc...

The war in Ukraine is extremely clear. One country attacked another in an attempt to overthrow their government and incorporate them into the Soviet Union 2.0. There is one side that is the clear aggressor that's killing civilians, and another one that is defending their right to self-determination.

Russians ARE committing war crimes in Ukraine. There is a lot of evidence for them massacring civilians. See what they've done in Bucha.

That being said, one thing you're right is that the "good guys" in this war were wrong before. What I think you don't see is that there were huge protests in the West against the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I don't support what the US were doing in the Middle East, but I wholeheartedly support all efforts to get Russians out of Ukraine - including shipping American military gear.