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smug n stuff posted:Of course not! I’m suggesting that if you go outside and get mugged, that is some explanation for why you got mugged. But it remains entirely the mugger’s fault for mugging you. Well, OK, but that feels like a bit of a nothing statement. Like, if I wasn't born, I wouldn't have been mugged. If I didn't wear a bright yellow hat that caught the attention of the mugger, he might not have noticed me. If I went by a different route, I would have avoided the mugger. If I left the house earlier or later, I would have missed the mugger. A lot of things added up to result in me coming across the mugger just when he had a cash deficit. What do they really matter to my mugging, exactly, unless you're trying to prescribe specific behavior I should take to avoid a mugging? Mind, there's another point, too. If you want to say "Euromaidan led to Putin's aggression," and just hold it up as a value-neutral statement, OK, sure, fine. But couldn't you also say "Yanukovych's actions led to Euromaidan"? Are we then to link "Yanukovych's actions led to Putin's aggression"? Hell, we can trace this game backwards further - if we want to talk about NATO expansion causing this, then we may ask "Well, what caused NATO expansion? If NATO expansion inevitably caused Russian defensiveness, then what pressures and fears were driving NATO thinking?" And we can frankly keep running backwards on this chain of events until we decide that Genghis Khan was responsible for the Ukrainian War. At which point does anybody actually have agency, and aren't just a long chain of dominoes falling over due to prior historical events?
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Mar 14, 2022 23:33
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Fame Douglas posted:I don't think some influencer is a source to go by. I'm pretty sure the Chinese are able to produce rations. Yeah for the rich airforce kids. PLA gets poo poo
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Mar 14, 2022 23:33
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TulliusCicero posted:So here's the absolute truth: Right, but here's the thing - NATO accession is not something that the Ukrainian public has much say over, one way or the other. They can support governments that are pro- or anti-NATO accession, but ultimately, it's up to the alliance's member-states. Either they vote unanimously to accept a country, or else that country doesn't get in. So the U.S. government's view on the issue does matter, especially since the U.S. is the de facto leading member of NATO. If that sounds lovely and unfair, well, you're right. NATO is not an alliance that exists to do what's fair; it's an alliance to enhance the interests of its member-states. That is the reason why Ukraine is not being let in: because it does not serve the interests of the alliance's member-states. quote:What gives Russia the right to rein in Ukraine's agency? Because they are big and scary? Nothing gives them that right. Geopolitics isn't about who has the "right" to do anything. Fame Douglas posted:Then why would Russia be threatened by Ukrainian NATO membership? Because Russia doesn't believe that NATO is a defensive alliance; they see it as an anti-Russian military alliance aimed at putting hostile armed forces on their borders.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:35
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Tomn posted:At which point does anybody actually have agency, and aren't just a long chain of dominoes falling over due to prior historical events? Agency is an illusion but it's still OK to blame Russia for the invasion.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:35
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Saint Celestine posted:I'm not sure giving troops Chinese MREs is helpful. Steve1989 said that the only times he got sick from eating MREs were from chinese MREs. This doesn't necessarily mean their MREs are bad. Gut bacteria is a fascinating topic and Chinese MREs are probably developed for people with a very different diet who would have fewer issues. Bel Shazar posted:Agency is an illusion but it's still OK to blame Russia for the invasion. Ironically, there is a central decision maker pushing the invasion so yes we can absolutely blame someone who could've said no for minimal personal consequences.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:35
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Majorian posted:Because Russia doesn't believe that NATO is a defensive alliance; they see it as an anti-Russian military alliance aimed at putting hostile armed forces on their borders. If they actually believed that, they wouldn't have invaded Ukraine, because that gave NATO the perfect pretext to get into an actual war with Russia.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:36
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Concerned Citizen posted:nato enlargement was seen as provocative while it was happening, russia bitterly complained. like, you're looking at it from the perspective of latvia. we all know why latvia wanted to join nato. if you're russia, you're asking - why exactly does the west want to offer security guarantees to them? it's not like the latvian forces are going to be crucial in any operation. the literal only strategic reason is to put bases on russia's border (russia is not under any circumstances going to believe that it was done for any kind of ethical principle), which is an aggressive action. that kind of thing is going to completely discredit pro-western voices and empower hardliners, which is exactly what happened. you can find the russian invasion grotesque and unjustified while still acknowledging that it didn't occur in a vacuum, and that american actions helped set the stage for what is happening. I like how your argument went from "Latvia would obviously want to join NATO because their neighbor is a crazed imperialist fascist" to "but it's actually America's fault they did so" JerikTelorian fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 23:36
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Majorian posted:Nothing gives them that right. Geopolitics isn't about who has the "right" to do anything. I mean, international law clearly means they don't have the right to wage a war of aggression. And all the sanctions make it pretty clear a significant part of the world agrees.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:37
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Now I'm going to stay inside and eat Chinese rations.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:38
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It seems like the only reason to push forward the "NATO is partially responsible for this" angle, at least for non-malicious actors, comes from this idea that there has to be some deeper reason for Russia to invade. Again like, you can judge the geopolitical climate right before the invasion and you can very clearly tell that Russia was in a much, much better position than it was now. The invasion is a mistake, every analyst anywhere agrees with this. Putin did not get precipitated into committing a mistake, there wasn't some larger play here, he decided to take the shot entirely on his own, and yeah in this particular scenario that actually means, literally, that he's the only one to blame. There is no world in which this invasion would've left Russia in a better state than it is today. It is an irrational action.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:38
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TulliusCicero posted:That's... way smaller than I thought it would be barely anyone watches cable news, at least live. clips/videos after the fact is a different story.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:38
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Fame Douglas posted:If they actually believed that, they wouldn't have invaded Ukraine, because that gave NATO the perfect pretext to get into an actual war with Russia. I'm not entirely sure what it is you're arguing; NATO is not at war with Russia, and Russia does not want to be at war with NATO. If you're arguing that Putin badly miscalculated in believing that NATO would not unite and support Ukraine indirectly, I agree with you - it was a terrible miscalculation on his part. Fame Douglas posted:People here are saying that Putin would have invaded either way. NATO membership wasn't on the table for Ukraine either way, and they decided to pursue both NATO and EU membership after being invaded by Russia by themselves. Waiting wasn't an option. Russia wants to restore Russia to its former "glory" I don't think it's necessarily true that "Putin would have invaded either way." Indeed, if the assessments of people like Burns, Perry, and Kennan in the 90s were correct, and NATO expansion fanned the flames of revanchist nationalism in Russia, Putin might not have taken power in the first place.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:40
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This all just collapses back to 'it's the Ukrainian people's fault for dreaming of being something better than a Russian client state'. Which on a technical cause-effect level is true, but also unhelpful if you want to try and form a normative statement about how things should be.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:40
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Majorian posted:I'm not entirely sure what it is you're arguing; NATO is not at war with Russia, and Russia does not want to be at war with NATO. If you're arguing that Putin badly miscalculated in believing that NATO would not unite and support Ukraine indirectly, I agree with you - it was a terrible miscalculation on his part. You just claimed that Putin is afraid of NATO being an anti-Russian military alliance aimed at putting hostile armed forces on their borders. If this were actually true, he wouldn't have invaded Ukraine, because he'd see NATO as an anti-Russian military alliance aimed at putting hostile armed forces on their borders. I'm not entirely sure what it is you're arguing, seems kind of incoherent? I'm saying that Putin has effectively demonstrated he isn't afraid of NATO at all. Fame Douglas fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 23:41
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Majorian posted:I'm not entirely sure what it is you're arguing; NATO is not at war with Russia, and Russia does not want to be at war with NATO. If you're arguing that Putin badly miscalculated in believing that NATO would not unite and support Ukraine indirectly, I agree with you - it was a terrible miscalculation on his part. Putin took power because he was willing to not prosecute yeltsin.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:42
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I'm sure everything will work out fine in the civilized self-proclaimed republics. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1503501315225358336?s=20&t=5kjUVGFK85-8Be6p_bC59g
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Mar 14, 2022 23:42
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cr0y posted:I can't believe no one went for the "yes you can buy our gold but we are going to keep it physically, I mean you trust us right?" Plan. Props to them for coming up with a more obviously stupid investment opportunity than NFTs, I guess.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:42
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Majorian posted:I don't think it's necessarily true that "Putin would have invaded either way." Indeed, if the assessments of people like Burns, Perry, and Kennan in the 90s were correct, and NATO expansion fanned the flames of revanchist nationalism in Russia, Putin might not have taken power in the first place. Putin was handed power by boris after putin wrote some article on how russia should be a forward thinking, modern state with patriotism and human rights. And boris somehow believed it all.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:42
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Saint Celestine posted:I'm not sure giving troops Chinese MREs is helpful. Steve1989 said that the only times he got sick from eating MREs were from chinese MREs. I watched this and I'm sorry to report that he says the other time he got sick from an MRE is when he was hospitalized with e. coli from a Ukrainian canned ration
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Mar 14, 2022 23:43
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Majorian posted:I'm not entirely sure what it is you're arguing; NATO is not at war with Russia, and Russia does not want to be at war with NATO. If you're arguing that Putin badly miscalculated in believing that NATO would not unite and support Ukraine indirectly, I agree with you - it was a terrible miscalculation on his part. How far back should we go? Russian oppression of the eastern European states during the cold war is what made them want to join NATO. If Russia didn't force these countries under its boot, maybe they would never have wanted to join NATO in the first place. It is Russia's fault that NATO expanded. Their actions instilled a level of fear in other countries that joining a defensive alliance was their best option.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:44
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https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1503409411091484677?t=7t0IgNAHGUKEu_fXkt3L3Q&s=19 This is a Bloomberg terminal repost. “Blocking access to international waterways” That’s a blockade. Holy poo poo.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:45
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Bar Ran Dun posted:https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1503409411091484677?t=7t0IgNAHGUKEu_fXkt3L3Q&s=19 I'd be shocked if Biden's actually signaled he's given a go ahead for a blockade. That's about as much a war as a no fly zone is.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:47
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So say Russia seizes the planes, they’re put into use and a few months later a seized Boeing falls out of the sky, killing all on board, because it couldn’t be maintained anymore with OEM parts or by technicians that know what they’re doing. How is/should Boeing going to respond? Nobody watching the news is going to care why it crashed, they’re only going to see/care that a Boeing crashed. I can’t imagine Boeing is going to look good in this scenario.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:47
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Tomn posted:Well, OK, but that feels like a bit of a nothing statement. Like, if I wasn't born, I wouldn't have been mugged. If I didn't wear a bright yellow hat that caught the attention of the mugger, he might not have noticed me. If I went by a different route, I would have avoided the mugger. If I left the house earlier or later, I would have missed the mugger. A lot of things added up to result in me coming across the mugger just when he had a cash deficit. What do they really matter to my mugging, exactly, unless you're trying to prescribe specific behavior I should take to avoid a mugging? Might as well never try to explain anything, then, huh. Joking, of course, I take your point. But don’t you think that the “the only thing that has any causal bearing on the invasion is the deranged mind of Vladimir Putin” is also kind of a “nothing idea?” We hopefully all agree that Putin is bad and hold sole blame (maybe plus some of his advisors) for the invasion. But how does saying there was nothing else involved (not nothing else blame-worthy, to be clear, I still think those are very different things) help us? How does it help us avoid situations like this in the future? Is the only thing to do assassinate him? That seems wrong too.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:47
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Bar Ran Dun posted:https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1503409411091484677?t=7t0IgNAHGUKEu_fXkt3L3Q&s=19 Probably more "blocking them from crossing passages that are controlled by nation states, e.g. Suez/Dardanelles/Panama Canal" and less "blockading Vladivostok".
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Mar 14, 2022 23:48
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Boris Galerkin posted:How is/should Boeing going to respond? Nobody watching the news is going to care why it crashed, they’re only going to see/care that a Boeing crashed. I can’t imagine Boeing is going to look good in this scenario. What lead you to this conclusion? It absolutely does matter why they crashed. Planes crashing in third-world countries due to bad maintenance don't lead to any outcry in the US. Or did you hear about Sriwijaya Air Flight 182.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:48
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Bar Ran Dun posted:
That's the one that stuck out to me too. I'm not sure how we would enforce that though, without seizing or sinking russian ships.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:49
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Fame Douglas posted:I mean, international law clearly means they don't have the right to wage a war of aggression. And all the sanctions make it pretty clear a significant part of the world agrees. Ah yeah, international law, that thing that definitely matters and gets regularly enforced which is why the United States has been brought to heel for its illegal invasion of Iraq 
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Mar 14, 2022 23:49
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Bar Ran Dun posted:https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1503409411091484677?t=7t0IgNAHGUKEu_fXkt3L3Q&s=19 That’s exactly what that is, and the usage of such is universally an considered an act of war.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:49
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Sinteres posted:I'd be shocked if Biden's actually signaled he's given a go ahead for a blockade. That's about as much a war as a no fly zone is. I believe it would be stuff to the us in our ports/etc. GaussianCopula posted:Probably more "blocking them from crossing passages that are controlled by nation states, e.g. Suez/Dardanelles/Panama Canal" and less "blockading Vladivostok". Also this probably.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:50
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KitConstantine posted:Slightly off topic funny post, indulge me Constantly waffling back and forth whether it's a good thing a wet towel like Macron is in office or if an old school Le Gran type would be better to help resolve the situation. Probably the former. Fame Douglas posted:I don't think some influencer is a source to go by. I'm pretty sure the Chinese are able to produce rations. I don't think there's anyone who knows more about international ration quality on Earth than that dude.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:51
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Pobrecito posted:Ah yeah, international law, that thing that definitely matters and gets regularly enforced which is why the United States has been brought to heel for its illegal invasion of Iraq Thanks for stating the obvious. Power is the ultimate force in international law, but still, it's considered to be an illegal invasion by a significant part of the world.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:51
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Bel Shazar posted:Agency is an illusion but it's still OK to blame Russia for the invasion. This is a bit of a derail but I just wanted to post one of my favorite blog articles. Specifically, relevant to this discussion, section 4 and 5. Here's an excerpt: quote:So when I tell people about this election, and they ask me “Does it always have the same outcome?” the answer is yes and no. Because the Great Forces always push the same way. The strong factions are strong. Money is power. Blood is thicker than promises. Virtue is manipulable. In the end, a bad man will be pope. And he will do bad things. The war is coming, and the land — some land somewhere — will burn. But the details are always different. A Cardinal needs to gather fourteen votes to get the throne, but it’s never the same fourteen votes, so it’s never the same fourteen people who get papal favor, whose agendas are strengthened, whose homelands prosper while their enemies fall. And I have never once seen a pope elected in this simulation who did not owe his victory, not only to those who voted, but to one or more of the humble functionaries, who repeated just the right whisper at just the right moment, and genuinely handed the throne to Monster A instead of Monster B. And from that functionary flow the consequences. There are always several kingmakers in the election, who often do more than the candidate himself to get him on the throne, but what they do, who they help, and which kingmaker ends up most favored, most influential, can change a small war in Genoa into a huge war in Burgundy, a union of thrones between France and England into another century of guns and steel, or determine which decrees the new pope signs. That sometimes matters more than whether war is in Burgundy or Genoa, since papal signatures resolve questions such as: Who gets the New World? Will there be another crusade? Will the Inquisition grow more tolerant or less toward new philosophies? Who gets to be King of Naples? These things are different every time, though shaped by the same forces.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:51
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Bar Ran Dun posted:https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1503409411091484677?t=7t0IgNAHGUKEu_fXkt3L3Q&s=19 I’d probably prefer a different source then rando repost.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:52
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DOOMocrat posted:I don't think there's anyone who knows more about international ration quality on Earth than that dude. On the other hand, some American influencer not liking Chinese rations doesn't seem super surprising.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:52
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Fame Douglas posted:What lead you to this conclusion? It absolutely does matter why they crashed. Planes crashing in third-world countries due to bad maintenance don't lead to any outcry in the US. Or did you hear about Sriwijaya Air Flight 182. Well for starters Russians are predominately white.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:53
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Fame Douglas posted:On the other hand, some American influencer not liking Chinese rations doesn't seem super surprising. Did you see the rations?
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Mar 14, 2022 23:53
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Boris Galerkin posted:Well for starters Russians are predominately white. But everybody would know the context of Russia not being able to maintain these aircraft correctly? Context absolutely does matter, and would matter.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:54
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Tomn posted:That would leave the former USSR countries entirely at the mercy of Russia, though, and would be a gamble that Russia absolutely wouldn't do anything to gently caress with them as long as NATO backed off. It MIGHT be possible that backing off long enough would have caused a thawing of hearts in Russia as they started to fully understand that NATO truly had no ill intent towards them and started to relax around European integration projects, but it might not have as well and then we'd be here wringing our hands about our failure to defend to helpless when they asked for our aid. i think nato enlarging by itself does not guarantee russia's willingness to integrate into the european order, because russia has never been interested in simply becoming a western country. it wanted an alternative security architecture where it got a greater say, perhaps even outright veto power, over security issues in europe. but the question is not really a binary between russia being a western-friendly power and it invading all of its neighbors. this really is the result of a particularly toxic brand of nationalism rising in russia. lest we forget, russia actually had been trending, even under putin, toward friendlier relations with the west. then nato intervened in kosovo against russia's traditional ally, then a few years later pulled out of the abm treaty under bush and built anti-missile defenses in eastern europe, and then enlarged nato toward russia's borders. that enlargement also coincided with color revolutions in the former soviet republics, which russia perceived as cia-backed coups. the real turning point in russia/west relations was the 2008 nato bucharest conference, where we announced our intention to give both georgia and ukraine membership in nato. that set off the russian intervention in georgia and then an intense campaign to sway ukraine back into russia's sphere (which culiminated in euro maidan, followed by the the russian seizure of crimea & the russia's intervention in donbas). russia perceived all of this as an outright attempt to destroy russia - it's not just propaganda, the evidence is overwhelming that they really did see this as a decades-long campaign to subjugate them. while nato enlargement was not the only factor, it was the poison pill that irrevocably turned the russians down this path. do i think russia needed to invade ukraine to secure itself? no, of course not. it's understandable why they wouldn't want a perceived hostile power to have more bases on their border, obviously the us wouldn't want chinese bases in mexico, but that doesn't mean they needed to undertake a mass-murder campaign to prevent it. it did not pose a true existential threat, and therefore it was completely unjustified. the need to do this comes from the rise of extremist views in russia that pit themselves versus the west in a struggle for control of eastern europe. i don't pin the responsibility of ukraine on the west, it's on the people who ordered the invasion. but i do think it was a gamble that russia could not really do anything about our foreign policy decisions, and that didn't end up being true. all this to say, i can certainly understand the perspective that russia would have ended up doing this anyway. after all, they are currently embarking on an invasion. i just disagree, i do think our history of deliberately antagonizing russia played a part in sending us-russian relations to where they are now.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:54
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Boris Galerkin posted:So say Russia seizes the planes, they’re put into use and a few months later a seized Boeing falls out of the sky, killing all on board, because it couldn’t be maintained anymore with OEM parts or by technicians that know what they’re doing. It’s going to be “Russian Boeing crashed”, with the country eating blame, just like all those plans crashes in Asia.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:55
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