[caymanjim]

International law barely exists and is unenforceable. If a superpower--especially a permanent Security Council member--wants to do something, there's absolutely no recourse. Look at Russia and Crimea. That's the most egregious violation of the notion of international law in recent history, and nothing of consequence happened. The big powers can do whatever they want, and the worst response will be token economic sanctions. China is so economically intertwined with the world that nothing at all would happen unless they nuked someone.

[speeder]

There are better examples than Russia and Crimea.

I am not Russian, and have nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine or whatever (I am Brazillian, of Iberian descent).

Still, Crimea was not a "invasion" or "conquest".

Long story short:

Russia invaded Crimea in 1700s, taking it from Tartars.

When a Ukranian became leader of URSS, he "gave" Crimea to Ukraine, it was only nominal, nothing changed in Crimea itself, the place still was basically a navy base for Russia.

When URSS broke up, because of previous decision, it was decided Crimea was Ukranian, except most of population there is Russian (including a huge amount of Russian military), and their only warmwater seaport deep enough for the good warships Russia had, was still there, to make this work, Russia "rented" the place from Ukraine.

When Ukraine most recent revolution happened, do you think all the Russian military personel families that live there since 1700s would want to leave?

Now... if you want to claim what is happening in Donbass is a invasion, then that is more plausible.

[8ytecoder]

Is URSS a Brazilian way of saying USSR?

Edit: it’s an alternate spelling. I had not heard that before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URSS

[close04]

> That's the most egregious violation of the notion of international law in recent history

There's a reason no country gives much of a second thought to international law. In the end it's purely about the optics and the optics are written by each superpower for whoever cares to listen to them. Case in point:

- Wage an asymmetric proxy war, invade a sovereign country, and annex one of their territories - Not OK.

- Find even a demonstrably false reason to wage declared war, invade a sovereign country, kill and torture combatants and civilians alike during the war and subsequent occupation - OK.

International law is a guideline and every country will interpret their own acts as righteous heroism and other countries' acts as barbaric violations of the law.

https://pics.me.me/their-barbarous-wastes-our-blessed-homela...

[historyremade]

In layman terms, what the fuck they want!!

[adventured]

Increased encirclement & isolation (economic & political persona non grata) by a large group of the liberal affluent nations is the only approach that will work to curtail military attacks like this one. The CPC ego is extraordinarily fragile, the party's self-esteem gets injured very easily, and that should be taken advantage of. Essentially all the highest GDP per capita nations are liberal allies, they should band together and begin excluding China in unison if these military attacks continue.

It's the sort of organizing the US used to be good at, and is presently failing at miserably (for obvious reasons). Germany, France and Britain are also falling down on the job as well (because they're economically scared), so there's plenty of blame to go around.

[noir_lord]

> Germany, France and Britain are also falling down on the job as well (because they're economically scared), so there's plenty of blame to go around.

In the case of Britain we've had a disastrous handling of the pandemic which is still on going (both the illness and the handling of it) on top of Brexit and incredibly poor leadership.

It'll be a decade before we return to something like normality and even then it will be in a new reality.

Leaving the EU lost us our ability to stand up to the US or China in any meaningful way - for them we are just another Tuesday.