The fact that the world is as peaceful as it is now is remarkable. It's because of MAD and the high cost of war.
What we revolt at is the industrial scale of modern war. But war has been with us since prehistory. Our ancestors killed, raped, and pillaged. Far enough back in time, and they even ate one another.
Look to nature. It evolved thousands of types of killing machines to harness the energy of other creatures. Lions eat wild prey alive. Hornets lay their larva inside live hosts so that they can feed. Orcas play with their food for sport.
Just imagine what happens when we get AGI or BCI.
It's easy to be pacifist and condemn war. And we should hope for that. But we also have to protect our sovereignty and safety, and that means maintaining an adequate defense with weapons, food, energy, and supply chain.
Our comfort comes at great cost.
A state is always going to need a military to defend its stability and continuity from existential threats. Despite what the internet would have you believe, the world is a massive place with a vast diaspora of peoples with tons of different contradictory policy preferences. I don’t think we could give up preparing for the next fight if we wanted to.
The other poster raises a valid point that war, as it is typically been envisioned, might be far less prominent than people realize. The argument is that the tank has a task on the battlefield, but we should ask ourselves how much that battlefield matters in this day and age.
Deport the unfavorable people to Siberia. Then import the willing population into Ukraine.
Given the Russian "tactics" and "strategy" for its war in Ukraine, it is clearly a threat of cultural genocide. Russia aims to destroy the Ukrainian people and their history, and disperse them into Siberia where they won't be able to become a threat.
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USA tries to "win hearts and minds" because we've convinced ourselves that we're the "good guys", and want to win under certain conditions. Without hearts and minds, we lose and we're willing to accept that.
When Russia fights, they're not aiming for that at all. Its just destruction. Even against "brother Slavs", its better for Ukraine to be destroyed than for it to play nice with NATO (or so they want to believe).
Under these circumstances, the only solution is to arm the Ukrainians and give them a fighting chance. Otherwise, the Ukrainians will be completely, and utterly, annihilated as a people.
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Russia has the will and the right strategy here in broad strokes.
They fortunately, don't seem to have the right tactics or approach. So it looks like the Russians will fail. But even as they fail, they will cause hundreds-of-billions, maybe trillions of dollars worth of damages, and likely cause the largest famine event the world has ever seen.
Better weapons and a better defense could have prevented the Ukrainians from losing their coastland. Better weapons could have allowed Ukraine to continue their grain exports. Better weapons and defenses could have protected Ukrainian's grain silos, which are being blown up and pillaged.
The West will HAPPILY fund the Ukrainians to proxy destroy the Russian military, and proxy bankrupt them.
We'll see how long Putin lives with cancer. The speed of deployment and assumed schedule for victory would point to very fast cancer.
Not many Ohlone on hacker news.
The US tried exterminating the Taliban, but failed.
What is that based on? What good outcomes has Russia had from a war, in centuries?
But the world has changed faster. All use of military now is misuse and futile.
We don't look at veterans now and say wow what heroes. We just thank them for their service. We don't celebrate them for "Mission Accomplished". Thanking is like a participation trophy.
As long as there are conflicting desires, there will be conflict, and it can break out into war.
However, it's possible that war can be reduced, but it may require things we're not quite ready for, such as the end of Westphalian states.
TEDxAmsterdam: Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjAsM1vAhW0
Link to TED profile: https://www.ted.com/speakers/peter_van_uhm
"Peter van Uhm [was from 17 April 2008 until 28 June 2012] the Netherlands' chief of defense" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_van_Uhm
To eliminate war the motives for war created by governments need to be addressed. There is only one logical outcome, once you decide you don't want war.
I'd go further and say that unless you achieve the perception of global equality in all things it is futile.
The grass is always perceived as greener, even when it actually isn't.
I'll make my comment more assertive: I think "we" (for almost any value of "we") prepared for this. Some assumptions were proven wrong, like it often happens with war. But a lot of it is playing out like many assumed it would, or at least, it's playing out so that some factions can observe what modern war fought with modern weapons looks like.
There's a reason Russia feels good blustering about attacking Finland.
When did that happen?
https://nypost.com/2022/05/14/russia-threatens-nukes-for-us-...
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-threatens-finland-sweden-nat...
This was major news and carried by almost every outlet. It is almost certainly just bluster, but escalatory bluster for sure.
Obviously what Russia has done is reprehensible, but if Ukraine saw war as incoming I don't see why they took these aggravating steps.
This is an understandably myopic view. Especially now, as the whole charade of justification and "objectives" of russia's invasion in Ukraine is in full swing.
Perhaps, remembering that in putin's view, Ukraine is not an independent state, its existence is a mistake, the land is a sphere of russia's influence... well, the madman outright wants it "back" into the "empire".
Thus it has long been clear that no amount of pacifying or "non-irritating" is to alter such policy. Language, aspirations and affinities are simply pre-texts for the forceful grab.
Fundamentally, we're dealing with a clash of mentalities. One adopting to modern day and the one still stuck in the "age of empires".
To putin's russians, tank is a symbol of forceful conquest. So it's not going away. Perhaps, more images of the charred russian army tanks could break this perception... temporarily.
This represents the total failure of diplomacy present in today's discourse.
We no longer think diplomacy affects the outcome and we think that any compromises from our side is just "free stuff" for the other one.
What happens if Putin is not insane? What happens if there were better diplomatic outcome to this situation that the war? The ones that were missed by the lack of effort?
There're no more what ifs. The madman was amassing the troops on the border for months, dismissing any possibilities of preparing an invasion. Then invaded, and openly blackmailed the rest of the world with a nuclear strike, all spreaded by his chief "diplomat".
Present day russia as state proved to be pathologically incapable of maintaining signed treaties.
If anything, the diplomacy needed to rely on the effective sanctions. However, that's were the failure was. Since the 2014 the sanction pressure proved to be insignificant to alter russia's course. Did we get a second chance at it now?
Why do you need troops if you're not going to amass those? Still does not mean that diplomacy can't be useful.
The mental health argument is weird. Was Bush a madman when he invaded Iraq?
The point of sanctions isn't deterrence. It's to weaken the Russian economy and slow down the rate at which they can manufacture more weapons.
With such strength of diplomacy, no wonder it didn't work.
And yeah, you should've got by now that the position of your neihbours is the most important factor in the policy of most, if not all, countries.
Previously, Russian was allowed to be taught in schools in Ukraine. It was then banned from being taught in schools even in regions where the majority of people speak Russian.
Furthermore, it is illegal in Ukraine to have a Russian language radio station.
I encourage you to read up on the actual policy differences.
"Yes it is" "No it isn't" is a really uninteresting conversation. Somebody supply some evidence, not just claims.
For schools, businesses and public services: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210401-new-law-stoke...
There's an education law that says that starting in 2023, all state schools must be taught primarily in Ukranian at and above the fifth grade. While imperfect, it does allow teaching in several minority languages, especially in primary school. Russian is not allowed at state schools above primary school as a teaching language for other subjects, but it can be taught as an elective subject and other organizations are free to teach it. The ECHR implications of this are mentioned specifically by the Venice Commission.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-language/criticis...
https://web.archive.org/web/20190516190140/https://www.presi...
https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?p...
From section 5 of the Venice document.:
"69. Thus, it appears that members of the Bulgarian, Greek, German, Polish, Romanian and Hungarian minorities, in addition to being able to study their language as a subject, may also study one or more other subjects through the medium of their language at the secondary education level. However, members of national minorities who do not speak an official EU language — Byelorussians, Gagauzes, Jews, and, significantly, Russians — will only be able to study at the secondary school level their language as a subject. Thus, a hierarchy is created at the secondary school level, with indigenous peoples potentially treated more favourably than national minorities which speak an official language of the EU, and national minorities which speak an official language of the EU treated more favourably than other national minorities."
There is a high quota for state-language content on radio but other languages are allowed a percentage. From section 7 of the Venice document.:
"95. With regard to the use of languages in broadcasting, Article 24 refers to the Law on Television and Radio Broadcasting. At the same time, a transitional provision of the Law (Section IX, point 7.24) amends Article 10 of the latter Law, tightening the language quota requirements, by increasing the proportion of the Ukrainian language content for national and regional broadcasters from 75 to 90 per cent and, for the local broadcasters, from 60 to 80 per cent. This amendment will come into force five years after the Law’s entry into force (i.e. on 16 July 2024)."
So is the situation perfect for everyone? No. Is the EU (and Hungary and some others) pushing Ukraine to compromise? Yes. Have they promised to work on compromises? Also yes.
There's no need to go beyond the actual, documented issues and spread falsehoods and propaganda.
TL;DR: I invite you to read up on the issue.
I never did - please don't accuse me of doing so.
1. On the school claim, it is now illegal to have exclusively Russian preschool or elementary school. Your own point concedes that it is illegal to teach other subjects in Russia - students will only be able to study their language as a "subject." That is not a "Russian-language school."
It is also illegal for private schools to teach in only Russian.
2. On Radio: As I said, it is now illegal to have an exclusively Russian language radio and for news subject, it is illegal for the radio to be even Russian majority.
This lines up with both of my claims.
Show me that law.
Doesn't seem all that minimal to me.
That's like forcing all Canadians to be only taught in French and subsequently losing Vancouver to the US.
So you have just confirmed everything that propaganda was talking about and were quite efficient at that.
Nobody has ever banned a language by allowing printing in it, allowing grades up to 4 to be taught in it, allowing secondary schools to teach it as a subject, and allowing private groups to continue teaching it as a primary language.
But more correct case in point is Belgium. If Belgium tried to force education to be in Dutch exclusively, there would very soon be no Belgium.
> allowing grades up to 4 to be taught in it,
"Banning grades after 4 from being taught in Russian" - I did it for you
All 30 years of Ukraine's independence they were seeing new limitations to the use of Russian, every year. Some of these are listed in comments.
> [not] banning Russian language
Russian isn't banned in Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians use Russian in their day to day life just fine. You can hear Russian spoken by Ukrainians on the battlefield.
> not shelling cities
Check photos from Donetsk in e.g. 2020, city ~10 kilometers from the frontline. Does it look destroyed? No, it looks like any peacetime city.
There were artillery exchanges between both sides targeting military fortifications. Civilian casualties in the last few years have been minimal.
But this doesn't really matter either way. Putin doesn't care about civilian casualties, otherwise why would he start this war?
It is illegal to have Russian language radio stations, Russian language schools, and for government to communicate officially in Russian (in addition to Ukrainian & English). Of course people still speak Russian in Ukraine.
> There were artillery exchanges between both sides targeting military fortifications. Civilian casualties in the last few years have been minimal.
Yes from both sides. 3.4k civilian casualties prior to the actual war.
Then it's not banned as you claimed.
> Yes from both sides. 3.4k civilian casualties prior to the actual war.
With 3000 out of that in 2014 and 2015. In 2021 - 18 civilian deaths, half of that caused by unexploded shells/mines - https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/Conflict-...
War in Donbas was actually dying out in the past few years, until Putin decided to escalate it and cause deaths of 10 000s.
I did want to say your observation is astute.
Even Russians themselves reflected on this, noting that most volunteer forces they have faced so far come not from the Western (majority-Ukrainian-speaking) regions of Ukraine, but rather from Kharkiv, Dnipro etc. Their explanation is that all those people are "brainwashed by Ukrainian Nazis".
There is some real contention with the status of Russian as 1) the official government language, and 2) the official education language in schools. But I don't think it's fair to phrase that as "banning Russian".
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament-langua...
"The new legislation requires TV and film distribution firms to ensure 90 percent of their content is in Ukrainian and for the proportion of Ukrainian-language printed media and books to be at least 50 percent."
It also says civil servants must speak Ukrainian. It does not say they can't also speak Russian.
In any case, that's not a ban.
Turkey has done the same thing to Kurdish speakers and most of the West has rightfully condemned their attempts to crack down on the language.
On the whole, I'd say that Ukrainian language policies are more akin to Quebec. OTOH Turkey has been packing its prisons with Kurds until recently for crimes such as "insulting Turkishness", so no, it's not really a valid comparison. I don't like the laws on this subject in either Ukraine or in Quebec (or really any place that tries to force cultural cohesion), but specifics do matter.
Armed conflict is driven by foreign policy which itself is, ultimately, politics.
(Unless it’s a crusade.)
Russian empire needs to be dismantled. But unlikely UKR waging war on russia will do it.
I think most people will agree with you that war is bad. But if you get attacked, then all you can do is either give up or defend yourself.
Afghanistan chose to give up to the Taliban, and now their rights are being taken away.
Ukraine chose to defend themselves, and the jury is still out on whether they’ll be successful and what the cost will be.
But there is no third option where you simply will war out of existence.
Diplomacy works with certain enemies, and that will hopefully be the outcome in Ukraine too, but that too will come with a heavy price, such as giving up major amounts of territory.
The natural corollary of someone attacking you is not to get into an arms race.
Afghanistan didn't choose Taliban. Pakistan and Saudi chose Taliban and armed them enough to take over. War obviously works.
What's going to happen in UKR is that the warlike will win and then naturally turn their guns towards the locals. Exactly like in Afghanistan. You can arm them as much as you like, but they will not turn into gandhis with an excess of guns.
My point is not that war doesn't work. My point is that we should all be fighting against war.
By what, asking nicely?
The way is for the antiwar people to be more successful than warriors and turn war into the losers' choice.
I refuse to arm myself, refuse to serve in militaries and refuse to support war as much as i am able. If antiwar people are successful, war will evolve out.
That’s always the unfortunate downside of relying on only persuasion. Some people will just take what they want if you don’t force them to stop.
Just read about how well persuasion (aka “appeasement”) worked in the buildup to WW2. Spoiler: it didn’t.
Whether they do that as a democratic government, a dictatorship, a paragovernamental entity, or a set of mobs makes all the difference in the world.
I don't trust people with guns. They are the same because they all choose violence to get their way.
"Democratic" gun holders point more guns at me today than mobs.
Words and persuasion are all very good, until you meet people who simply don't care.
You can have more than one, but it's a huge life vs. death issue. You can't have zero.
Ideally the Zelensky regime should have gotten the message and should have left for the West as soon as the Russian paratroopers landed at Gostomel. The Czechoslovaks in '68 and the Hungarians in '56 had done exactly that. Yes, that would have probably meant a couple of decades of a Russian-backed puppet regime in Kyiv but the future would have been open for anything. As things stand right now Ukraine has almost no access to the Black Sea anymore, about 7 million people have left their homes, not to mention the tens of thousands of civilians dead in this war.
So trying another region's way of war would be an improvement, then?