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Gripweed posted:Sure. But so what? We've given Ukraine the weapons, but we still say Russia is going to invade. SO great, we dumped a bunch of weapons onto the world and didn't even stop the other bad thing. So Russia invading Ukraine....ok? US giving Ukraine weapons bad (ill bite on this) but also Russia invading Ukraine bad. I don't understand what the argument is here. It seems like posters are unwilling to accept that "Russia=Bad" so we're pretzel brain twisting ourselves into some weird "well yes Russia could be bad but also Ukraine bad because Nazis and NATO and US Imperialism so bothsides are bad and therefore Russia invading Ukraine...good?" Like, why is it so hard to say that when a country invades another, smaller country and kills tens of thousands, displaces millions, and causes a humanitarian crises, why is it so hard to just say "That is bad and country should not do that?" It's bad when the US does it, it's bad when Russia does it, it's bad if any country does it. But whatever I guess we can all sit here and continue to bothsidism when the Russians begin dropping artillery on Ukrainian population centers in a few days.
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# ? Feb 14, 2022 23:52 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:50 |
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CommieGIR posted:Again, this seems really weird to blame a country under threat of invasion for accepting aid they asked for. Where have I ever blamed Ukraine? I have always been blaming America. I am the Blame America First crowd, this entire time I have been saying America should not have provided the weapons. Pook Good Mook posted:Ya that was bad. That was also 60 years ago and entirely different. Indonesia wasn't getting invaded by Malaysia or some other neighboring country. Yes, of course Ukraine is allowed to defend itself and can take aid from anyone who gives it. At no point have I cast aspersions on Ukraine for accepting the weapons. My entire thing this whole time has been that America should not have provided the weapons.
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# ? Feb 14, 2022 23:54 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:So Russia invading Ukraine....ok? Literally my first post in this thread Gripweed posted:At the same time, I do not support Vladimir Putin. I am opposed to the idea of Russia invading Ukraine. I am opposed to invasions generally, and specifically in this case. If the areas of the Ukraine under contention have a significant population that wish to be part of Russia, then that should be settled peacefully, maybe with a plebiscite or something. But definitely not with an invasion.
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# ? Feb 14, 2022 23:55 |
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Gripweed posted:Where have I ever blamed Ukraine? I have always been blaming America. I am the Blame America First crowd, this entire time I have been saying America should not have provided the weapons. OK but why? Because it's a bad look? Like literally just framing? So America should just pay another country like Austria to do it? I don't understand.
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# ? Feb 14, 2022 23:56 |
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Majorian posted:That's really what it all comes down to: there's no scenario in which Russia invades without accruing costs that make such an invasion not at all worthwhile. There is nothing that Russia can hope to gain from trying to annex regions of Ukraine that do not overwhelmingly want to be part of Russia. Even with over half of its military might committed, it would be a long, costly, bloody slog, followed by an extremely drawn-out, miserable, economically ruinous occupation and reconstruction. During all that, Russia would face so many sanctions from all sides that it would be effectively under a worldwide embargo. They may even run the risk of upending their recent natural gas deal with China. An already-suffering economy under those circumstances usually can't keep up a campaign of conquest in a large country like Ukraine for very long. Eh Europe can't shake their dependence on Russian petro for at least a decade, so they can make up for losses caused by sanctions (ie NS2 block, if that is even on the table which it might not be) through scarcity pricing, plus if they commit to taking certain points of Ukraine they can also reopen the Soyuz-Transgas pipeline network. If they can recoup their losses this way, plus strategic power projection gains from securing land access to Crimea and whatever foreign policy goals they can compel out of a ceasefire agreement on top, then I believe they can push limited offensive action into being considered worth the risk vs whichever negative outcomes.
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# ? Feb 14, 2022 23:57 |
Sinteres posted:That gets to my other concern. If the threads are going to be functionally identical, it would be nice if that would be made clear from the top so some of us know not to bother posting in it after the skew of the last one. Like I genuinely thought part of the point of this thread was to have somewhere people could be more free to express opinions that might offend the sensibilities of regular EE posters without tracking mud on their carpet. What prevents you from doing so? CommieGIR posted:This thread is for Discussion of the ongoing Ukraine crisis and Russian intervention to help take the weight off the Eastern Europe thread.
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# ? Feb 14, 2022 23:59 |
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cinci zoo sniper posted:What prevents you from doing so? I don't trust you, frankly. I'm not saying you're a bad person or a liar, just that you very clearly have a perspective on all of this, and I think it very clearly colors your moderation of these threads, so you being the IK in this one as well as the other one makes me less interested in posting here, particularly when you say you view the threads as the same. If that's just a me problem, cool, I'll post somewhere else. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Feb 15, 2022 |
# ? Feb 14, 2022 23:59 |
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Gripweed posted:Sure. But so what? We've given Ukraine the weapons, but we still say Russia is going to invade. SO great, we dumped a bunch of weapons onto the world and didn't even stop the other bad thing. “The aggressor is always peace-loving (as Bonaparte always claimed to be); he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.” - Von Clausewitz Glad to see there's still people failing hook, line and sinker for claims of peace from aggressors, and decrying all attempts to stop them as warmongers. It's quite interesting how some loud people rightfully decrying America's imperialism have zero problem with non-American imperialism. It's almost as if they have no problems with imperialism, just with America doing it. As for your question: even if the aid is not enough, it makes poo poo more costly for Russia and possibly prevents further imperialism. quote:Ukraine can only "accept" those arms because America is offering them! Which is not a neutral act! Are you claiming that sending arms* to a country asking for them is always wrong? I'd strongly rethink that, since under that claim the USA aiding the USSR against the nazis is a moral wrong. *or other war material; even if lend-lease ended up being mostly trucks IIRC it allowed USSR's industry to reconfigure for more tank production
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:00 |
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Gripweed posted:Sure. But so what? We've given Ukraine the weapons, but we still say Russia is going to invade. SO great, we dumped a bunch of weapons onto the world and didn't even stop the other bad thing. Drunk driving is illegal but people still do it! The point is prevention but it's not perfect.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:06 |
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Wait so people in here don't think it is the right thing to do, when NATO and European countries provide aid to Ukraine in this situation?
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:09 |
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Trump posted:Wait so people in here don't think it is the right thing to do, when NATO and European countries provide aid to Ukraine in this situation? Seems so, but also Russia invading Ukraine bad too so we’re kinda miffed here
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:10 |
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Pook Good Mook posted:OK but why? Because it's a bad look? Like literally just framing? No, we shouldn't be giving weapons to anyone. American military aid does not have a good track record, we should stop doing it. Here's another way to look at it; What if Russia doesnt invade? We've given the Ukranian military a lot of new weapons. While I am relieved to hear that we made Ukraine promise those weapons wouldn't go to the explicitly nazi parts of their military, the fact that we had to apply that restriction should give you pause. What will the Ukrainian army do with all their new American weapons, if they don't have to fight Russia? I don't know. Do you? Are you confident that it will only be good stuff? Because if you aren't, that's a good reason to oppose giving them those weapons.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:10 |
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Trump posted:Wait so people in here don't think it is the right thing to do, when NATO and European countries provide aid to Ukraine in this situation? I suspect it depends on what the armaments end up doing and contributing to. Just throwing more arms out there is not usually a situation that ends very well. Especially if those same groups end up using the guns and legitimacy given to them to create more problems.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:13 |
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Conspiratiorist posted:Eh That's assuming that everything goes perfectly according to plan, though. Japan is already planning to divert LNG to Europe in case Russia turns off the tap, and while that's not a long-term solution, it will make it a lot easier for Western European countries to cut off business with Russia if they actually invade. In the meantime, they'd have to contend with a pretty large, committed, well-funded, well-armed insurgency - those things tend to make reconstruction efforts difficult and expensive. As the U.S. saw in Iraq on more than one occasion, pipelines have a habit of getting blown up by insurgent groups. So I don't see a scenario in which they recoup their costs, much less actually profit from conquest. Even if there were such a scenario, I think it would be too much of a longshot, with high risk and little likely reward, for the Kremlin to actually sign off on it. e: Trump posted:Wait so people in here don't think it is the right thing to do, when NATO and European countries provide aid to Ukraine in this situation? I don't think it's "wrong," but I do question the effectiveness of sending lethal aid. The Obama Administration's policy was to send only non-lethal aid. It was the Trump White House that changed the policy in 2017, allowing weapons to be sent. That doesn't seem to have deterred Russian intimidation like we're seeing currently. One could claim that it has deterred Russian aggression since we haven't seen any further Crimea-style incidents, but I don't find that a compelling argument. For one thing, Crimea was a very particular, case in which the population of the region overwhelmingly wanted to join Russia. I don't think the referendum on the issue was particularly legitimate or legal, but the point is, it made Russia annexing the region extremely easy. Meanwhile, if anything, providing lethal aid seems to have only ratcheted up tensions between the U.S., the EU, Ukraine, and Russia. NATO allies like France and Germany opposed sending lethal aid for precisely that reason: (from 2015) quote:Germany's top diplomat has warned against supplying Ukraine with lethal weaponry in its fight against pro-Russian separatists, saying such a move could trigger a "dangerous, permanent escalation" of the crisis facing Kyiv and Moscow. quote:The latest German warning comes just days after that country's ambassador to the United States said President Barack Obama has decided against sending lethal weaponry to Ukraine at this time. Majorian fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Feb 15, 2022 |
# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:13 |
Gripweed posted:No, we shouldn't be giving weapons to anyone. American military aid does not have a good track record, we should stop doing it. What could they possibly do with them in that event? Do you have any specific weapon misuse ideas in mind?
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:20 |
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To put it another way - Ukraine has zero history of aggression against any of its neighbors.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:21 |
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Start killing minorities and/or selling the armaments on to the black market to various other groups to commit terror offenses? Say the military aid ends up in the right hands all the time, even then there will be leakage into criminal areas and so on. It doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility that contributing more armaments into an area may lead to more people using said armaments, even when adequate precautions have been taken.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:22 |
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Gripweed posted:Yes, of course Ukraine is allowed to defend itself and can take aid from anyone who gives it. At no point have I cast aspersions on Ukraine for accepting the weapons. Gripweed posted:What will the Ukrainian army do with all their new American weapons, if they don't have to fight Russia? I don't know. Do you? Are you confident that it will only be good stuff? Because if you aren't, that's a good reason to oppose giving them those weapons. I mean, the first post is technically true, you hadn't cast aspersions on Ukraine for accepting weapons yet, you were planning to do so in your second next post. E: those two posts are on the same loving page
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:23 |
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Gripweed posted:No, we shouldn't be giving weapons to anyone. American military aid does not have a good track record, we should stop doing it. If they joined NATO they'd be getting some of these weapons anyway. That also places some level of trust between the countries who make up that pact.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:24 |
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Josef bugman posted:I suspect it depends on what the armaments end up doing and contributing to. Just throwing more arms out there is not usually a situation that ends very well. Especially if those same groups end up using the guns and legitimacy given to them to create more problems. I would say hopefully the armaments deter Putin from invading an annexing part of a sovereign nation in the first place. If they don't deter that, then I would hope that those armaments send enough Russian soldiers home in coffins that Putin is forced to give up his unprovoked imperial war of aggression.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:27 |
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CommieGIR posted:there's also the whole: We were very explicit that Georgia and Ukraine were not being considered for NATO....and then Russian invaded Georgia to support the separatists. Wait is 'lethal aid' to support the self-determination of a nation good or bad
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:28 |
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Josef bugman posted:Start killing minorities and/or selling the armaments on to the black market to various other groups to commit terror offenses? Ukraine has a professional military that is more than capable of using received aid responsibly. They aren't loving ISIS
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:28 |
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Majorian posted:That's assuming that everything goes perfectly according to plan, though. Japan is already planning to divert LNG to Europe in case Russia turns off the tap, and while that's not a long-term solution, it will make it a lot easier for Western European countries to cut off business with Russia if they actually invade. In the meantime, they'd have to contend with a pretty large, committed, well-funded, well-armed insurgency - those things tend to make reconstruction efforts difficult and expensive. As the U.S. saw in Iraq on more than one occasion, pipelines have a habit of getting blown up by insurgent groups. So I don't see a scenario in which they recoup their costs, much less actually profit from conquest. Even if there were such a scenario, I think it would be too much of a longshot, with high risk and little likely reward, for the Kremlin to actually sign off on it. The counterargument is that they could've accomplished all of the goals you outlined with a force concentration (and mobilization cost) a fraction of the size of the one they're currently fielding. This has long since crossed the threshold of merely looking realistic.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:29 |
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HonorableTB posted:Ukraine has a professional military that is more than capable of using received aid responsibly. They aren't loving ISIS Collusion between state and terror groups that are technically unaffiliated but tactically supported have a bit of cross over in a lot of places. The UDF in Northern Ireland provides an example where, despite being a proper military, a great deal of arms and armaments were being given by that same army to terrorist groups in return for those terror groups committing atrocities at the "right" people. Not saying that this would happen in this instance, but having a professional military does not mean that there will not be sales of arms on the black market. I am also a touch worried that a lot of these current weapons could end up used by Russia as well, if captured or if just sold over the course of time.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:33 |
Josef bugman posted:Start killing minorities and/or selling the armaments on to the black market to various other groups to commit terror offenses? Not sure why would Ukrainian army be interested in killing minorities all of a sudden, but potential arms control problems is a fair enough concern to evaluate, I guess. It’s worth noting here that Ukraine is caught by this development amidst reforms to rebuild their army to the NATO standards (like what Sweden and Finland have), so you may or may not operate on an outdated idea of how well put together are their armed forces.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:34 |
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The last time Ukraine committed violence on minorities was in WWII and they weren’t even a country then. They have literally zero armed internal or external conflicts (other than possibly Russia). The weapon misuse argument is really stretching reality.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:35 |
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Conspiratiorist posted:The counterargument is that they could've accomplished all of the goals you outlined with a force concentration (and mobilization cost) a fraction of the size of the one they're currently fielding. Well, sort of, but they also haven't gotten this much attention from the Western media and governments when they've done this in the past. Putin is still relatively popular in Russia, but his approval ratings have taken a hit from his terrible handling of COVID. So having a fake standoff with NATO over Ukraine is a useful distraction from all that. Building up a military force larger than has been seen in the past seems to be doing the trick.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:36 |
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Arms control was probably a concern that was limiting Western support to Ukraine to non-lethal aid for much of the last 7 years, it's Russian aggression that has changed the risk calculus to prompt a flood of lethal aid support.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:37 |
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Not sure why would Ukrainian army be interested in killing minorities all of a sudden, but potential arms control problems is a fair enough concern to evaluate, I guess. It’s worth noting here that Ukraine is caught by this development amidst reforms to rebuild their army to the NATO standards (like what Sweden and Finland have), so you may or may not operate on an outdated idea of how well put together are their armed forces. I'm saying that leakage of military equipment does tend to happen and pass into the hands of local power groups. I am not saying that this is done on purpose by any means. But all it takes is one quartermaster on the take and a lot of folks end up with a lot of shiny new toys to shoot folks with. It isn't outside of possibility.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:37 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:So Russia invading Ukraine....ok? This ignores that most of the people itt not completely antagonistic towards Russia are not saying Russia invading wouldn't be bad. We're saying we don't believe there will be any invasion. So one side is arguing about realpolitik and why nations posture at each other while the other is going to emotional arguments about displaced peoples and the suffering of civilians which are not relevant to the side that doesn't believe there is going to be a war. The western press loving loves war and does this every couple of years. They were so desperate for a NATO ground invasion of Syria that they didn't get so i guess now is the time to risk global nuclear war. cinci zoo sniper posted:Not sure why would Ukrainian army be interested in killing minorities all of a sudden, but potential arms control problems is a fair enough concern to evaluate, I guess. It’s worth noting here that Ukraine is caught by this development amidst reforms to rebuild their army to the NATO standards (like what Sweden and Finland have), so you may or may not operate on an outdated idea of how well put together are their armed forces. You don't know why the Azov battalion, sorry I mean "Ukrainian special forces", might potentially harm minorities?
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:40 |
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Alchenar posted:Arms control was probably a concern that was limiting Western support to Ukraine to non-lethal aid for much of the last 7 years, it's Russian aggression that has changed the risk calculus to prompt a flood of lethal aid support. If that was the case, then why did it take until 2017 to change the policy? Russia wasn't any more aggressive in 2017 than it was in 2014-15. It seems more likely to me that Trump changed that policy because he wanted the U.S. MIC to make a lot of money by selling arms to Ukraine.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:41 |
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Alchenar posted:Arms control was probably a concern that was limiting Western support to Ukraine to non-lethal aid for much of the last 7 years, it's Russian aggression that has changed the risk calculus to prompt a flood of lethal aid support. The risk calculus for the Trump admin providing lethal aid was so that they didn't look soft on Russia, only increasing the amount sent when the Democrats attacked Trump on being too friendly with Russia. Biden's calculus probably has more to do with Russia's actual military position but it's also helped with domestic image.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:43 |
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Majorian posted:If that was the case, then why did it take until 2017 to change the policy? Russia wasn't any more aggressive in 2017 than it was in 2014-15. It seems more likely to me that Trump changed that policy because he wanted the U.S. MIC to make a lot of money by selling arms to Ukraine. Trump was impeached over this when he tried to withhold the arms shipments in exchange for electoral help from Ukraine. In order to leverage something that could get him that dirt, the aid has to exist first. Besides, it wasn't very long after that when Ukraine changed its designation of the combatants to reflect their position that they were fighting the Russian military instead of insurgent internal forces
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:46 |
Majorian posted:If that was the case, then why did it take until 2017 to change the policy? Russia wasn't any more aggressive in 2017 than it was in 2014-15. It seems more likely to me that Trump changed that policy because he wanted the U.S. MIC to make a lot of money by selling arms to Ukraine. Ukrainian army around 2014 was a husk stuck in Soviet military paradigm, and that was ground zero for their conflict, more or less. By 2017 their army reforms were well under way already, lobbyist groups representing Ukrainian interests were properly established in the U.S., and, of course, there was a change in American leadership. I’ll not speculate on the relative weight of those 3 factors, but the situation by 2017 was substantially different from the other side of the situation.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:47 |
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Did anyone ever find the diamonds the oligarchs gave Hunter Biden or did he try to smoke them when he mistook them for crack? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:50 |
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Majorian posted:Well, sort of, but they also haven't gotten this much attention from the Western media and governments when they've done this in the past. Putin is still relatively popular in Russia, but his approval ratings have taken a hit from his terrible handling of COVID. So having a fake standoff with NATO over Ukraine is a useful distraction from all that. Building up a military force larger than has been seen in the past seems to be doing the trick. This isn't just "larger"; they could've committed 3/5ths of the current present frontline fighting power and it'd still be the largest mobilization in the history of the Russian Federation, the largest force concentration in Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union, and a more than sufficient fighting force for the purposes of securing Donbas + annexing a land route to Crimea and humbling the Zelensky government. So if from the beginning the goal was showmanship, they've truly gone above and beyond. And it's not cheap - Russians loathe undepoting forces, and this time they've brought everything and the kitchen sink.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:50 |
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Not sure why would Ukrainian army be interested in killing minorities all of a sudden Do we really have to circle back to what caused this thread spit in the first place? The literal neo-nazi accused war criminal battalion in the Ukrainian military? That causes you zero concern?
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 00:50 |
Gripweed posted:Do we really have to circle back to what caused this thread spit in the first place? The literal neo-nazi accused war criminal battalion in the Ukrainian military? That causes you zero concern? As I’ve said before, I do find Azov’s existence concerning, much like that of any other ideological paramilitary. Azov is explicitly sanctioned by US DoD, and does not benefit from American military aid, as far as I know. Besides that, I meant the broader mass of their armed forces, not a unit going rogue.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 01:03 |
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Ukrainian army around 2014 was a husk stuck in Soviet military paradigm, and that was ground zero for their conflict, more or less. By 2017 their army reforms were well under way already, lobbyist groups representing Ukrainian interests were properly established in the U.S., and, of course, there was a change in American leadership. I’ll not speculate on the relative weight of those 3 factors, but the situation by 2017 was substantially different from the other side of the situation. True, but wouldn't those factors suggest that if Russia wanted to actually annex more Ukrainian territory (instead of just continuing to isolate and destabilize the country), it should have done so between 2015-2017? It seems to me that what has deterred further Russian invasions hasn't been the lethal aid provided by the U.S., but rather the fact that the rest of Ukraine is a very different kettle of fish from Crimea. In the years leading up to the 2014 invasion, the people of the region overwhelmingly supported leaving Ukraine and joining Russia. One doesn't have to sacrifice too much blood and treasure on occupying a region that is already, for all intents and purposes, occupied. The rest of the country isn't quite so keen on the idea, though - even in places like Donbas, the population is much more divided over whether or not they want to join Russia. So it seems to me that what deters Russia from further invasions is less that the U.S. is arming Ukraine, and more that trying to conquer some or all of Ukraine, even under ideal circumstances, would be too much of a shitshow for it to be worthwhile. Conspiratiorist posted:This isn't just "larger"; they could've committed 3/5ths of the current present frontline fighting power and it'd still be the largest mobilization in the history of the Russian Federation, the largest force concentration in Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union, and a more than sufficient fighting force for the purposes of securing Donbas + annexing a land route to Crimea and humbling the Zelensky government. I think the calculation is that they need to go all-in on the brinksmanship to make sure that NATO and Ukraine blink first. It will be interesting to see how this affects Ukrainian public opinion with regard to NATO accession in the short-to-medium term. If more Ukrainians begin to believe that NATO membership will not actually protect them from Russian aggression, support for joining the alliance may begin to drop again. Then again, it may continue to rise. We'll see.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 01:10 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:50 |
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Majorian posted:That's assuming that everything goes perfectly according to plan, though. Japan is already planning to divert LNG to Europe in case Russia turns off the tap, and while that's not a long-term solution, it will make it a lot easier for Western European countries to cut off business with Russia if they actually invade. In the meantime, they'd have to contend with a pretty large, committed, well-funded, well-armed insurgency - those things tend to make reconstruction efforts difficult and expensive. As the U.S. saw in Iraq on more than one occasion, pipelines have a habit of getting blown up by insurgent groups. So I don't see a scenario in which they recoup their costs, much less actually profit from conquest. Even if there were such a scenario, I think it would be too much of a longshot, with high risk and little likely reward, for the Kremlin to actually sign off on it.nce and Germany opposed sending lethal aid for precisely that reason:[/url] (from 2015) Supplying Europe with LNG from other sources would take decades because the shipping terminal for those exports don't exist. Building that infrastructure would take years and probably even longer.
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# ? Feb 15, 2022 01:14 |