[happytoexplain]

How can they distinguish good from bad justifications for aggression? Russia's current actions seem to be at one extreme, while, say, responding to an attack from another government would be on the other extreme (barring extenuating circumstances), while the US usually has an (ostensible) justification somewhere in the middle.

Afghanistan after 9/11 is a good of example of something that was hard for another western nation to argue against the justification for starting (how it went is another story).

[shadowgovt]

> How can they distinguish good from bad justifications for aggression?

On a case-by-case basis. As you note, the international community probably wouldn't have reacted against the US regarding Afghanistan (and probably should have regarding Iraq).

[nsonha]

"good aggression"

Be aware that most people cannot read Chinese or Russian, and as such their whole world perspective is fed by an one sided narrative.

I suggest you listen to these[1][2] talks, and Putin's speech[3] on NATO expansion in Munich in 2007. Pozner[1] pointed out that up to 2007, Putin really tried to be friend with the West, including asking to join NATO.

Of course they were "the enemy".

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44

[happytoexplain]

Please try not to misquote me.

I made no reference to good aggression, only justifiable aggression. Even then, while it would be fine to form an argument that no such thing exists, it's unrealistic to despise the man who returns a punch.

As for Russia's reasonable concerns about the West and the nigh-impossibility of objectively or thoroughly observing foreign points of view - both are true and important, yet neither serve in the least to justify attacking Ukraine's capital.

[bcrosby95]

> including asking to join NATO.

Did he? All I could come up with this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s...

According to this person he didn't ask to join, he asked why he wasn't asked to join, and wanted to skip the process that countries-that-don't-matter have to go through.

[gloriana]

From greenwald: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/war-propaganda-about-ukrain...

And slightly more edgy: https://niccolo.substack.com/p/fuck-it-russias-final-break-w...

[lm28469]

> Putin's speech[3] on NATO expansion in Munich in 2007

Ukraine would never had joined NATO because it was an active war zone anyways. Putin didn't have to do anything to avoid Ukraine joining NATO.

Listening to his current explanations for the invasion doesn't make him sound like a good guy no matter the language or the perspective.

> Putin really tried to be friend with the West

And relations were relatively good until he decided to invade Ukraine, he just severed every diplomatic bridges and every single chances of progress for the next decades(s).

Putin's not the Devil but he clearly is the aggressor here. Ukraine was a sovereign state with a democratically elected government. You'd be hard pressed to use the "b-bu-but it's both sides" rhetoric here.

[fuoqi]

>Ukraine would never had joined NATO because it was an active war zone anyways.

It does not prevent NATO from supplying weapons and training the Ukrainian army. The US reconnaissance planes have conducted regular patrols over Ukrainian territory. The British even tried to build naval bases in Berdyansk and Ochakovo. And with active and heated territorial disputes it's easy to see a hypothetical scenario of Ukraine trying to re-capture Donbas and Crimea by force after it felt it's sufficiently strong or Russia is weak enough, like Georgia tried with South Osetia.

>And relations were relatively good

I suggest watching the following videos if you want to learn about alternative points of view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

[prox]

That sounds great until you figure out that Putin has a reason for everything. The problem is not so much Putin, or even his viewpoint that Russia doesn’t feel safe (I can even see the merit of such a stance) , but the fact that is that he is not accountable to his people.

If he was a normal president and with a functioning democracy, I doubt we would even be at the current situation. I saw the videos of Putin with his advisor (the Spy chief) and that was an exercise in “tell me what I want to hear.”

[hollerith]

Being accountable to the people didn't stop the leaders of the US from engaging in plenty of acts of agression and territorial expropriations these past 230 or so years.

And I wouldn't be terribly surprised if most Russian voters will end up approving of the invasion provided Russian casualties and costs don't get too high.

[prox]

That’s not the point really I tried to make (sorry if I was being unclear). I have a choice to (try at least) vote out the president who starts wars if I don’t agree with it. I could protest freely and massively on the streets. There is no such option in Russia. If I was a Russian citizen that fact alone would be cause for concern.

[nsonha]

The US leaders are way more reckless than Putin. The difference is, as pointed out in the lecture in one of the videos, that it's in a incredibly secure position in an unipolar world.

US foreign policies have been a series of failures without any real consequence save for 9/11. No one is gonna sanction the US nor start a war with it.