[oytis]

Democracies can be capable of quick direct action too. See U.S. esp. U.S. some 50-70 years back. Democracy is no excuse for being inefficient, if democracies don't find a way to protect their values and interests, they will eventually be replaced by more efficient states

[supportlocal4h]

I was just explaining to my children that there was a time when the USA government employed censors (an actual job title) to control television content.

Much that the USA was or did 50-70 years ago was decidedly not democratic and not their proudest moment.

[toyg]

Ah yes, the glory days of "quick direct action" in Vietnam and Cambodia. What fun was had by everyone! What progress was achieved! We should totally long for that.

[oytis]

These are examples of unsuccessful wars, although we don't know how many times the possibility of American intervention prevented USSR from starting theirs. Korean war was partially successful though, the whole Korea could look like North Korea if US didn't intervene

[toyg]

I think the US has demonstrated enough "possibility of intervention" since 1991, wouldn't you agree...? Kuwait is "free" but Iraq is lost to Iran, Afghanistan and Rwanda are still a mess.

Guns don't solve everything.

[oytis]

I would consider intervention in Yugoslavia pretty successful actually, instead of genocidal nationalist dictatorship we have a couple of democracies - not without their problems, but still no comparison to Milosevic regime.

Interventions in Iraq, Lybia and Syria can be seen as failures if we consider the bold goal to bring democracy to the Middle East. But at least these countries don't attack other countries any more - ISIS as evil as it is can't cause as much harm as these could.

In any case I guess with Eastern Europe it's more likely to work like it did in Yugoslavia than in Middle East. Belarus has really strong civil society, all they are missing is really some guns.

[toyg]

Yugoslavia was screwed up in the first place by foreign countries sponsoring separatists in Slovenia and Croatia. When that predictably turned out to be a terrible idea, “we” then decided to solve it with bombs, and while doing it we came pretty close to massive escalation with the Russians. We barely mopped up a mess of “our” own making, and it’s still a mess down South. “Successful” is not a word I would use.

Lybia is more of a mess than under Qaddafi, which means the issues with migration to Europe have worsened and the Lybians themselves are worse than they were. Same for Iraq. I won’t get into Syria since that wasn’t really a straight military intervention.

Yea, what Belarus really needs now is a good civil war, so that Putin can annex more territory on one side and we can create a new border that will be forever disputed. Or, as alternative, we can have them be the casus belli for thermonuclear war between NATO and Russia, that will work great.

Or you know, we can wait. Worst case scenario, Lukashenko sooner or later will die. Best case, enough of his security apparatus will decide he’s not worth propping up anymore. Either way, no guns required.