[philwelch]

There was "potentially legitimate local support" from Germans living in Danzig and the Czech Sudetenland, too. The overriding principle of international law is that you shouldn't use your army to invade neighboring countries.

[dmix]

Indeed, it would be far more defensible if they merely seceded themselves instead of joining the bigger guy next door, with the direct intervention of their army beforehand.

I'm a big fan of smaller states and more localized governments which closer reflect the people (see: Canada, Scandinavia, Singapore, Taiwan, HK, South Korea, etc). Few people talk about the US's massive population, economic, size/scale of modern western governments growth vs the past when talking about today's political and class divides.

So my general point is that the needs/wants of the Crimeans themselves shouldn't be merely tossed aside and ignored just because Russia played a role. Especially if we're trying to prevent this from happening again. Taking the UN's elitist evil Russian boogieman approach leaves the world more vulnerable to this sort of thing, not less. Just like with ISIS/Iraq/Syria, the locals needs matter a lot more than we give them credit.

[bushin]

Ukrainians didn't think that Russians are evil boogiemen and look what happened to them. Better safe than sorry.

[dmix]

Did you not follow the whole Ukraine civil war where the entire point was the gov was going non-NATO and pro-Russian? The vast majority of Ukraine stood up to Russia at significant costs to themselves.

I agree with a lot of anti-Russian stuff (their overarching geopolitical approach not the hysteria that’s used as a political tool in the west), but that's a very strange counter-example to use...

[bushin]

The earlier Ukrainians had started kicking out Russian agents the lesser loss of lives and territories they would've suffered. They hesitated because they didn't see Russia as an enemy.

[pnako]

Right. You should only invade far away countries in the middle east.

International law used to be European law, now it's American law. And perhaps it will be Chinese law, in 50 years.